


Thursday Afternoons

by Ending_Daley



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, timebaby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ending_Daley/pseuds/Ending_Daley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor uncovers River Song's secret and slowly starts to embed himself into their lives one Thursday afternoon at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

  
Thursday Afternoons   


The Beginning

Nothing important was happening that day which made it odd for the madman and his box. For what the madman held possession of was not your ordinary box it was a time-travelling-space-discovering-bluest-of-the-blues type 40 TARDIS. It would take him anywhere he wished to ago at any time he wished to be there. Yet, here he was, sitting alone in a park he could vaguely remember on a Thursday afternoon.

A Thursday afternoon, of all the types. Could he really find anything more _boring_. But in that unexciting place he found something relaxing, comforting and remarkably time was letting him be forgotten, if only for an hour. As the sun beat down warmly on his face The Doctor realized he was in no rush and that perhaps it was better off if he stopped to enjoy the extremely little things every once in a few whiles.

His leg twitched, an anxious tick. He had been still for far too long and his body now had decided to rebel. The Doctor’s hands started to shake as the world in his head spun that little bit faster, voices calling out in a rage to catch his attention. Adventure called and who was he to deny it. He moved to get up to leave the park but something stopped him. A weight pressed down on his shoulders keeping him sat in the bench as a little boy he had spotted on the playground jumped off and moved for the open patch of grass.

He hadn’t noticed the boy all that much until now as his outstretched arms bent and curved while he ran, the sounds of an aeroplane flowing from his mouth. The boy was alone in his imagination as he ran around the grass ducking, rolling and jumping as he continued to be the plane. The Doctor could practically see the energy rolling off the boy as he pulled himself into a handstand and then rolled forward enacting a battle he had conjured up all on his own.

The Doctor could not help but notice that the boy was content without companions. He seemingly did not need the attention or completion that came with other children, but at the same time there was something missing from his smile, something that was fixed with a friend. The seclusion of the boy worried him but none the less the child was not his to worry about and had seemed rather content to play alone, who was he to judge the decisions of a happy child.

An adult voice drifted though the noisy laughter of children and their constant chatter. It caught the attention of the little boy whose head, at the sound of it, picked up like an eager puppy. He was up and off the ground in a second flat, his hands madly rubbing at the knees of his pants in an attempt to rid his school uniform from dirt. The Doctor felt compelled to follow as the boy stopped briefly at a tree to collect a school bag that was almost the size of his small being.

Again his mind reminded him that this child seemed familiar in a sense. His movements were eliciting several memories The Doctor couldn’t quite place, but he would be wrong to say that he wasn’t intrigued to find out. He got up from the park bench slowly, unsure that it was a smart idea to follow a little boy home from the park. But none the less the thought was schooled and The Doctor followed the boy anyway.

It was short distance to the edge of the park grounds where neat little houses were lined up in a tidy row. The boy walked towards one directly, a white fence and vibrant garden existed in front of the redbrick home. A voice called through the open door as the boy walked through the gate and up two short steps. From The Doctor’s distance he could only _just_ hear a remarkably familiar voice scold the young boy for his ill timing. Apparently the woman, the boy’s mother, The Doctor assumed had expected him home fifteen minutes prior to his arrival claiming that the child must have stopped to play at the park before retiring home. When the woman’s voice continued with the boy’s name The Doctor’s mind slid a puzzle piece into place.

There had been a basketball game, many years ago for The Doctor but sometime in the future from now. It was likely that the game had been played in the very same park they had been in today which would clear up the familiar air about it. The boy was older then, his hair darker, his face stronger and his legs quite a bit longer. But there was no doubt that this young man then, was this boy now. ‘ _Isaiah_ ’ flowed through a cracked window now but had been chanted on the court as he caught the ball and then moved to shoot. People milled about the park’s basketball court calling out his name, cheering him on with ambient _whoops_ as he played.

The boy played the game unfazed then as he played alone on this day. He was the only one on the court, The Doctor could see it in his eyes. He recognized that his team members were there but did not acknowledge them whilst the ball was in his hands and the hoop close enough to score.

 _Isaiah_. It was a nice name, a soft name, gentle, caring and strong. Salvation of the Lord, it meant if he had remembered correctly. That was a heavy weight to place on someone’s shoulders, certainly not the name he would choose for his own son if he ever had another away from Gallifrey.

The Doctor approached the front door slowly, admiring the flowers that lined the little brick path under his feet. He should have been pleased that he found the memory, that he had seen some of this boy when he was grown. But it wasn’t enough, something called to him and it was not until he looked up, his eyes level with the front door did his hearts start to pound in fear of another meaning. It wasn’t every day that he came across this colour on things that he did not put there, this colour that called home without a second thought.

The front door was painted TARDIS blue.

He shook his head in an attempt to tell himself ‘no’. No, he would not approach that door any further, he would not knock to see who was inside. It was a Thursday afternoon, nothing _important_ happened on a Thursday afternoon.

He wasn’t interested.

He didn’t care.

He was turning around now.

He was leaving.

But he wasn’t.

His feet were carrying him further up the little path, closer to the door. Try as hard as he may The Doctor couldn’t stop the pull, he couldn’t fight it. His hand raised against his will, curiosity winning over as he knocked on the deep blue door that sang to his senses like home.

The woman’s voice called out again, sounding irritated through the wood. ‘ _Isaiah Song, I swear if these are your footprints on my rug you have another thing coming!’_ More words followed, something about ‘straight home from school’ and ‘the park’ but The Doctor wasn’t paying attention, he couldn’t hear it over the sound of his pounding hearts and the need to remind himself to breathe. It was all in vain once the door was pulled open, his breathing stopped and his hearts skipped a beat as the voice behind the door suddenly had a face.

Her name ghosted his lips as his realization surmounted. He had found her home, the place where she lived, the place where she had made a home and this was no place for him. His mind wandered from the moment briefly as he contemplated the little boy’s relation but there was no doubting it when a voice called back, apologizing to his mother as the door was pulled open by the woman herself.

“River.” The Doctor gulped as his day continued to make his head spin as it all fell into place. He should have known why he was so drawn to the boy and his mother’s house. He should have known at the startling hint of TARDIS blue paint.   

“Doctor,” She breathed easily, her expression startled. He would have thought she was acting as normal if she hadn’t shuffled herself onto the front step pulling the door tightly closed behind her. “What are you doing here?” She stammered, caught off guard. It wasn’t like her to blatantly hide things without a teasing smile or flirty ‘spoilers’ instead she actually looked frightened of his discovering her secret.

Her grip eased off the doorhandle when a crash sounded from inside the house her face paling instead of her knuckles. She turned quickly, pushing the door open to run inside. The Doctor’s being there hardly mattered now as the little boy from the park, Isaiah, was found on the floor a shattered pot plant lying beside his body.

Catching The Doctor’s eye the boy forced an embarrassed smile as he pushed himself up on his elbows. The Doctor smiled back, knowing the embarrassing extent of his own clumsy limbs. He had been in many a situation like this and his hearts honestly went out to the little boy as his mother began to fret undecided about which was more important; the now ruined off-white rug or the extent of her son’s injuries. The Doctor took a moment to take some attention off the boy himself and instead draw his attentions to admiring River Song’s choice in décor. The off-white walls with stark white trimmings were as vibrant in their presentation as the woman was in life. But outside the white walls, brown furniture, brown flooring and the green plants The Doctor noticed the presentation of the boy’s presence in her life over everything else. Pictures neatly lined the walls while children’s toys, shoes and clothes scattered the foyer and what he could see of the living room in neat and sometimes messy piles.

“Sorry mum.” Isaiah whispered as his eyes darted away from inspecting The Doctor. “I didn’t mean too, I just wanted to know who was at the door.” River turned to glare at The Doctor over her shoulder, who had now taken an uninvited step into her house his large shoed foot placed right beside Isaiah’s smaller dirt print.

She reconsidered asking him to leave as she readjusted her kneeling position in the mess her son had made. River’s hands fluttered over Isaiah’s arms and legs skirting over old bruises and cuts he had accumulated just from being a clumsy child before her hands moved to tuck his floppy dark hair behind his ears. “What have I told you about _looking_ where you are going?” She chided with a soft look. Why she kept nice things out where her son could knock them over was still a wonder to both the woman and her boy especially when it concerned pot plants and rugs or delicate china and precious artefacts.

Isaiah looked away, his fingers tracing patters through the spilt soil on her rug knowing that it was probably too late to be saved. “I didn’t mean it.” He whispered again, ashamed.

Without permission from his wife – or was she his wife, he thought – The Doctor stepped further into the house and crouched down beside River, his hands hanging between his knees casually. “Hey, I’m sure it’s okay, right River?” He nudged the woman softly with his elbow. “I do things on accident all the time, sometimes it doesn’t even involve being clumsy, sometimes it’s just … me.” The Doctor’s face fell slowly a certain memory playing in his mind. One he had really wanted to be rid of.

A smile tugged at Isaiah’s lips as he moved to sit up a little further, his mother’s hand holding tightly to his arm as he did so. “What did you do?” The boy asked as though he could see right through to The Doctor’s thoughts.

“The Chicken Dance.” The Doctor gritted through his teeth a shudder running down his spine in regret. “But, what’s done is done!” He clapped his hands loudly causing the little boy to laugh.

“My name’s Isaiah, what’s yours?” Isaiah lent past his mother in order to extend a tiny hand but River stooped her son in the middle of his motion grabbing onto his hand and pulling him up as she too stood instead.

Knowing that she had her reasons The Doctor wasn’t shocked that River pulled the boy back. He was daring, The Doctor, he could give you all of your dreams but he could crush some of them too. He was dangerous and he could understand why River Song did not want that for her little boy. “Interesting name, Isaiah.” He tested it out on his tongue with a grin, he had to know, he had to prod. This boy was calling out to him and he still couldn’t figure out why but this was his opening and he was taking it while River was still letting him. “I’m The Doctor.” He tested the waters with his wife or would be wife – he still wasn’t sure - as he extended his hand, still crouched on the ground to the little boy who wasn’t much taller than his crouched height.

Now on his feet Isaiah stepped around his mother’s legs cautiously as he extended his own little hand out to The Doctor, his head titled softly. “That’s not a real name.” He told the Time Lord, a soft smile gracing both of their features.

“I suppose you’re right. You can call me John, how about that, John Smith?” The boy nodded as he wrapped his fingers around The Doctor’s sealing the deal on their names and ultimately their tied fate. “How old are you Isaiah?” The Doctor asked touching on the basics of conversation in a hope to be allowed further information on this little boy’s life.

“I’m five!” He jumped, his whole face alight. “I go to school and everything!” The energy The Doctor witnessed in the park was not reserved only for play, the older man noted as the child continued to bounce on the balls of his feet. “How old are you Mr John?” He asked his bouncing slowing.

It was The Doctor’s turn to light up with excitement, he didn’t only insist on the face of a twelve-year-old, he often acted like one too but in that moment he believed that he was simply channelling the boys eager excitement. “Do you want to know how old I am?” He asked, his eyes wincing as he tried to pull the boy under his endearing spell. The child nodded furiously. “I am twelve hundred and three.” Isaiah’s deep green eyes poured over The Doctor’s face as he spoke, matter of fact.

Isaiah roared with laughter, “That’s silly! No one is twelve hundred and three.” He didn’t believe the man before him whom, as far as he had seen was telling ridiculous lies.

“Oh, but I am.” The Doctor grinned knowingly as the boy continued to stare, intrigued. The Doctor dared to flick his eyes towards River who had now taken a step back, her thumb pressed between her lips as she worried at the nail deciding whether or not she should interfere with the truth before the little boy said something innocently.

Isaiah laughed again, his little face alight as he watched The Doctor intensely. The Doctor couldn’t help but grin back at the child whose floppy brown hair was tickling the child’s cheek. Suddenly, overcome by a thought Isaiah twirled to face his mother. “Can he stay for tea?” He asked pleadingly. “Please?” Little hands clasped under his chin Isaiah begged his mother knowing that she would eventually cave under his begging eyes. “I can show him my planets. I can show you my planets!” He span again this time to face The Doctor again, his arms in front of him with the excitement.

“Yeah River, he could show me his planets.” The Doctor joined in on the boys excitement there was a line and he was getting very close to pushing River Song over it but she still hadn’t kicked him out yet. There were no raised words, no threat of pulling her gun on him or trying to kill him, again. Instead, River stood scared, petrified even as her son fell in love with The Doctor.

She continued to gnaw at the thumb in her mouth for a moment before she looked at Isaiah with worry. She really didn’t want him falling under this spell, there was so much at stake with his young life and already she had sacrificed so much for him over the last six years and now it was about to crumble, she wasn’t ready yet. “I, I don’t think it’s a good idea, Isa.” She stuttered, her thumb now picking at her lip nervously.

“But, mum, please. I’ll go to bed when I’m told. I event won’t ask for a story.” No matter her worry she couldn’t help but be surprised at the boys admission. Isaiah was five and for as long as he could talk the little boy begged for a story before bed. She told him masked tales of the Raggedy Man and his adventures and that was as far as her son had travelled into the cosmos. That was as much as she was comfortable with her sons connection to his father and he was addicted to the stories enough, she couldn’t bear the thought of what would happen if he was granted with the real adventures. Watching the boy stand before the man who bore half of his DNA was too much.

“Isaiah, I’m sure he has other things to do and really I hadn’t planned for us to be accompanied tonight.” Isaiah jumped the energy pumping through his legs again as his mother stalled.

Nervously moving to stand The Doctor ran his hand through his hair before readjusting his coat. “Well, ah, Isaiah your mum’s right you can’t invite people last minute.”

The little boy had to tilt his head to look up at The Doctor as his feet slowly stopped moving. “But,” His world was shattered with the simplest of things. “Mum doesn’t mind, honest. You don’t mind mum, do you?” The zig-zag between adults was starting to make Isaiah’s head spin as he turned back to his mother and stumbled a bit with the motion. 

Stepping out to catch her son River pulled him against her, her arms crossing over his shoulders as she hugged him tight. “I think it might be best if Mr Smith went home.”

“But he’s my friend.” Isaiah tilted his head up to look at his mother with a five-year-old pout.

She laughed fondly her grip on the child loosening with the warm smile that tugged at her lips. “Sweetie, you’ve only just met him.” With everything she had given up, everything she had done and experienced in order to be here with her son on this day, all of it was worth it to experience life with Isaiah. His sweet innocence kept her sane even if she cried herself to sleep some nights in yearning for the stars and galaxies, to be amongst them again.

River tore her eyes from looking down at her son to study the man before her. The Doctor, _her_ Doctor. He didn’t know, he didn’t even try to make a verbal guess towards who this boy was he accepted his existence and River assumed – she knew – that he was giving her the space she needed to come to terms with before giving him the truth. Beautiful idiot. But she knew, she could see it in his face, he hadn’t once thought that this child was _his_. She watched quietly as he fought a battle in his head before crouching down once again in front of Isaiah getting down onto his level in respect. “Your mum’s right, Isaiah. I have lots of things to do tonight. Thousands of things!” His face lit up at the boy watched him still amazed. “But,” he lent in and tapped the boy on the nose fondly. “we’ll see each other again.”

“Are you sure?” Isaiah asked as his little body sagged against his mother, defeat winning over as The Doctor nodded in the affirmative.

Extending a hand The Doctor waited for the little boy to take the offered limb in a firm yet childishly weak shake. He was getting up to leave quietly with a soft nod to River and happy goodbye to Isaiah when the child broke from his mother’s hold and stopped The Doctor when he spoke. “Mr Smith?” He called out softly causing The Doctor to stop at the door. “Don’t worry about my mum. She can be a bit tough sometimes but I know she likes you.”

“How’d you know that?” The Doctor asked in return his eyes flicking between River’s worried gaze and the content little boy.

“She wouldn’t have let you in if she didn’t.”

[…]

She tucked her little boy in that night as he murmured words about John Smith and his usual space nonsense that was in fact not nonsense at all. River pressed a kiss to his thick hair as she smoothed his blankets down before leaving the room. She stopped that night, as she did every night and watched him from the doorway for a little while. She had too some nights, she needed to watch him for her own sanity make sure he was still breathing before she slipped into her own nightly routine.

Convinced that he was fine to sleep on his own she turned her back and trotted down the stairs. A glass was waiting for her in the neat kitchen, a bottle of wine sitting next to it just as she had left both items before making sure Isaiah was getting ready for bed.

She sighed heavily as she pulled the cork, the stress of her afternoon filling the room like the soft hiss of the relieved bottle. Filling her glass, her back against the counter River Song let herself melt into the support as a tear streaked her face. She had come so close to telling him today, he was in her foyer talking to their son and she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t even say ‘Isaiah this is your dad’. She feared what would come with that knowledge once it was thrust upon father and son. Her little boy was sick, he already had a number above his head cementing his fate. Doctor’s didn’t believe he would live past 20-years-old and she couldn’t bear the burden of telling the man who would be effected the most. She knew her husband, knew what he was like, what he would try to do and to be honest with herself; she was keeping Isaiah a secret in order to prevent the unintentional heartbreak he would cause them both.

Her son was going to die that was a fact and although everyone had a number not all of them were aware of it. Her son had a deadline to live his life and she could not expose him to the wonders of the universe as selfish as it was.

“Professor River Song.” _His_ voice startled her out of a daydream. One hand reached back to steady herself against the counter as the other wiped at her eyes while she spun to face him.

“What are you doing here?” She couldn’t force the cheeky ‘hello Sweetie’ or playful ‘what sort of time do you call this?’ it wasn’t her life anymore. River Song didn’t have adventures with The Doctor, she lived a mundane life with Isaiah and no matter how much of herself belonged to that playful teasing banter she couldn’t put it on, not now, not in this house.

The Doctor ignored her words as he stepped further into the kitchen, “Who are you and what have you done to my wife?” He held his hands out to her and she stepped, without thinking, towards him as his hands fell to her hips. Instantly he pulled her closer, her body flush against his as he nuzzled his nose into her neck eliciting a small whimper from the wife, the real one he hadn’t seen in years. She whimpered, actually _whimpered_ as he pressed a feather light kiss to her neck.

River didn’t answer his question instead her eyes traced his face, like Isaiah’s had done in wonder just that afternoon. It wasn’t just wonder she watched him with it was awe and longing she watched him like a lover who had just gotten their other half back. She should have known better with The Doctor.    

“I don’t know if you knew this,” He drawled as she swayed closer to his touch. There was something about the woman before him, messy curls, oversized jumper and jeans that baffled yet intrigued him. She looked like River Song, like _his_ River Song but there was something missing; the flash make-up and glamorous clothing, it was odd that she could still look like that without the getup. “but there’s a little boy living in your house.”

Like a tight pulled string cut in half River pulled back from her husband. Fear ghosted over her face if only briefly as she stared at him. It was the same Doctor, the same one from earlier in the afternoon. The same version twice in one day, she was certainly in for a treat.

“I have noticed, Sweetie. He’s my son.” The Doctor nodded, he had gathered that much from meeting Isaiah that afternoon. “How did you find us?” She asked, stepping back and crossing her hands over her chest.

“Where did he come from?”

“Is that what you came here for? Surely I don’t have to explain how babies are made to you, Sweetie.”

The Doctor ran a hand over his face in vexation. “You know what I mean River.” She hummed playing dumb if only to watch him squirm. She waited, standing in front of him her fingers playing with the stem of her wine glass as she waited for him to crack. He didn’t. Instead he paced, scuffing his shoes against her clean floor with his hands in his pockets and his head hung between his shoulders.

“He’s our son.” She broke watching him with earnest, scared of his response. The man stopped moving and River could honestly believe that he stopped breathing altogether. She took a step towards him her hand daring to reach out and grace his arm. Silence filled the room like air in a balloon, she could only stand so much before she burst. “I didn’t tell you about him because I was scared.” She whispered, her words didn’t need to be louder than that as she took another step closer to him needing it more for herself than him. “I was scared that he would be taken from me, from us. That my childhood would become his, I was scared of that. You have to understand that I didn’t tell you because I was protecting him and through that I was protecting us.” The Doctor let out a heavy breath but didn’t say anything. He was listening; he had to hear why she did this before he said anything. He couldn’t speak on the wrong pretences.

Clocks ticked between them, time passing slowly but just that little bit too fast and neither party knew what to do. River needed her husband to understand what she had done and why she had done it and he did, he just didn’t know how to tell her so.

Someone else broke the silence for them as Isaiah stood in the kitchen doorway his shoulders slumped and his face pale. “Mama.” He rasped and that was all he needed to say before his mother glided towards him and swooped him up into her arms with an utterance of ‘oh baby’. She squeezed him tightly enjoying the sleepy warmth of his little body before she sat him on the counter and started to rub at his back. “John.” there was no excitement in the boy’s words but it was there on his pale and sickly face. Isaiah had transformed from playful little boy to sickly child in a matter of hours, The Doctor was rather taken aback by the transformation.

River clapped on his back repetitively as the boy sat there and smiled tiredly at the taller man who just stared. “What are you doing?” He asked River eyes large and worried. Never had he had to do this with his children on Gallifrey and he was certain that it wasn’t an Earth thing. 

Stopping what she was doing River ran her hands down Isaiah’s face softly before she kissed his forehead, “You okay to do it for a little bit, bubba?” She asked as she wrapped her hand around his little fist and raised it too his chest. “Not too hard this time.” She scolded as he nodded softly still half asleep. Turning her attention to The Doctor, one hand on the counter beside her sons knee River closed her eyes. “He has Cystic Fibrosis.” She stopped, waited, breathed again before continuing. “He’s not a Time Lord.” She leant towards The Doctor so Isaiah couldn’t hear. He was too busy clapping on his chest with his mouth open giggling at the sounds he was making as a cough stopped him every few claps. “He’s more human than Time Lord and even with that small strand his body isn’t capable of holding it. His lungs don’t work like they should the Cystic Fibrosis comes from the mucus on his lungs and in his digestive track. He has to work that little bit harder to breathe every day and I’m constantly watching what he’s putting in his mouth.” 

She pulled away from where she was standing as she caught Isaiah out the corner of her eye reaching for the muffins they had made before dinner and she had been yet to put away. Tapping his hand affectionately she gave the boy a warning glare with a reminder that he was supposed to be sleeping not sitting in the dim light of the kitchen eating muffins.

“I was going to tell you about him. Eventually.” She sighed breaking the muffin in half and half again before she handed one of the quarters to the now gleaming little boy. River rubbed at Isaiah’s back reminding the boy that he needed to continue with the chest percussion for another fifteen minutes before he could stop and then she expected him back in bed.

The boy frowned before catching The Doctor’s eye and smiling giddily again. He stopped breathing; The Oncoming Storm, _The_ Doctor he couldn’t breathe when the little boy, _his_ little boy grinned at him as though the two of them were in on a secret River didn’t know about. “He got sick and I didn’t know what to do.” River was talking to him again and Isaiah was off in his own little world. “I knew if you knew that you were going to try and do everything to help him. But he doesn’t need the heartache that would come from that.”

Behind River Isaiah moved, slipping off the counter and drawing The Doctor’s attention as he did so. The child didn’t go far as he padded to the other end of the kitchen counter and pulled a box of tissues down.  Coughing loudly into the tissue he carried it to the bin neatly to dispose of it before moving to hang off his mother’s leg. “Bed?” She asked softly, her fingers threading through his hair.

“Can Mr Smith tuck me in?” River half bent over to pick up the five-year-old she should probably stop carrying stoped mid bend to look at the paralysed man. His eyes grew round with fear and a simple question;

_‘Can I?’_

Nodding to herself she rose, Isaiah in her arms. She hugged her son briefly as she always did enjoying the baby smell that still stuck around and how small and fragile he seemed when he curled around her body. Pressing a kiss to his temple she handed him over to The Doctor who was standing awkwardly with his arms half out.

Isaiah wasn’t a baby anymore, he could walk and talk he could live relatively independently for five-years of age but there was something about handing him over to his father that made her eyes only see the tiny, quiet newborn child. The child she should have passed over to this man for a hold five years ago.

She watched with a fond kind of heartache as Isaiah wrapped his legs around The Doctor’s waist and locked his arms around his neck. She put her hand on the small of her husband’s back knowing that in all this time he wouldn’t be used to the sleepy weight of a child and walking through a house he had never before seen the whole of. Pushing gently she smiled at Isaiah who watched her over his father’s shoulder with sleepy eyes as he was carried up to his bedroom on the small second floor.

If The Doctor noticed the stars and planets that littered the little boy’s room in the dark he didn’t comment as he lowered Isaiah down on his bed. His eyes already closed with sleep and the rest of his body following.

“Can I see him?” He whispered stopping instinctively at the door as they backed out of the room quietly. The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off his son, not yet. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before: the dark hair, the thick floppy locks, his green eyes and energy. Perhaps he didn’t want to see it in fear of the truth, but the truth was out now and he would never not see himself in his son.  

Crossing her arms lazily over her chest as she stifled a yawn River watched The Doctor as he watched their son. “What do you mean?”

It took him a few seconds but slowly he removed his eyes from the sleeping boy to look down at his rather short wife who had domesticated herself almost to the point where he didn’t recognise her. “I want to see him regularly. Take him to the park, help him with his homework, adventures … I want to be his dad.” He whispered the last part almost as though he was ashamed for asking.

If he had asked her earlier in the afternoon she knew what the answer would have been. No. Flat out no. But now, watching his concern, his terror and care as he just tucked the little boy he just found out about into bed she had a completely different answer.

“How about we start slow, he doesn’t know who you are but you can see him on Thursday afternoons.” The Doctor nodded drinking in her every word. “He gets home from school at half-past-three depending on if he dawdles, which he usually does.” She rolled her eyes warmheartedly. “You can see him for an hour starting next week. Does that work?” The Doctor nodded vigorously. “But you have to turn up when you say you will. If you hurt him, I can promise you’ll never see him again.” He nodded again, accepting what he was being given. It was a step, a large step towards a child he didn’t even know he had but now, now she was letting him into Isaiah’s life and The Doctor knew that River had every reason to say no and kick him out of her house. But she didn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a new piece I would love to know what you all think about Isaiah and the plot line in a whole.
> 
> See you around, little sandwiches.


	2. The First Week

 

  
Thursday Afternoons

The First Week

His hands were shaking as he took the steps to River’s front door. He was scared, terrified really. The Time Lord was spending an afternoon with his son. _His son_. A small child that was part him, albeit the child himself wasn’t actually aware of the connection. He didn’t know how to act around that concept and knew that River Song was not one for the idea of sharing the child’s paternity with the young boy, just yet anyway.

Knocking on the door with an air of forced confidence The Doctor waited for the sounds of life inside that would alert him to the beginning of his afternoon. River was the one who opened the door, surprized to find his face beyond it. “You’re early.” She looked as startled as he felt scared. “He’s not home.” The Doctor nodded. Right, he knew that. Smiling softly River stepped aside, she eyed her husband up and down curiously, inspecting the messenger bag that was slung over his shoulder as she let him into the house.  

“I, ah, the TARDIS, um.” He stuttered, embarrassed, hands in his hair. “Clever old girl she, uh, reminded me that it was Thursday – not that I forgot or anything but you know. Space and Time Continuum, I get caught up in it sometimes.” The woman hummed, she knew that he would happily spend hundreds of years on adventures and not even think as to the possibility of an hour passing. His excuse had always been that time could be rewritten, he would simply travel back and do something he missed again. But that was what she was scared of. He would hurt her son in doing that. Isaiah wasn’t a stupid boy and River knew that he would pick up on the man’s differences if he had been away for thousands of years before coming back to visit again and that was something she wasn’t ready to explain. It was going to happen regardless of what River thought, she just hopped that The Doctor wouldn’t forget their son in the process. She didn’t want to clean up that inevitable mess. And after she cleaned it up, sorted her son out and knew he was going to be as okay as he could, she would find The Doctor and she would rip him to shreds.  “Made me wait a whole week and everything.” She couldn’t help but think that he looked like their son as he put his hands in his pockets and refused to give eye contact, uncomfortable with the situation. Her heart contracted at the sight, his sincerity was heartbreaking.   

River smiled shyly. She knew this man, she loved this man but there was something about him that made her shy and nervous, she never left like that around him, ever. But now that they shared a child, another living soul and it was known to the two of them. There was something odd between them an air of another wall, distance in a sense.

“River?” He stopped her as she led him through the house and to the kitchen. “I did some research.” He told her shyly as he deposited his bag on the counter and pulled out a large book. “Cystic Fibrosis, it’ll kill him.” She nodded slowly, forcing herself into distraction as she set about making tea. It was only 3 o’clock, Isaiah wouldn’t be home for half an hour. She had to survive this conversation with her husband, the one she didn’t want to have without her child there to be the buffer. River knew it was wrong to use her child’s presence in order to avoid a conversation but this was one she definitely didn’t want to have and she would succeed to any length of being a bad parent in order not to have it.

But to say she wasn’t prepared for this conversation she would be lying to herself. From the day River Song found out her son had a genetic disease found within humans that would undeniably kill him some time into his young adult hood, she had practiced how to tell her husband. She just wasn’t ready now, she couldn’t break him like this. He had only just found out about Isaiah, which had been her fault, but River knew he would want to claim the time he missed and the times that will be ripped away from him.  

“There’s a cure. It’s a few centuries away though but I have the TARDIS and, and he might regenerate. I mean there’s a chance that he’ll regenerate, right?” The Doctor’s face was a mixture of worry and excitement. He thought he was helping. It was a pity that he wasn’t; he was only making it worse for himself.

Hands pressed to the counter, eyes closed River breathed heavily as she muttered something to herself, a reminder of why she hadn’t told him about Isaiah. “Stop.” She told him. “Just enjoy Isa while he’s here. No heroic measures, Doctor. There are rules:” She whispered. “No talk about regenerations, about the TARDIS and the universe beyond his understanding. They’re all faerie tales to him, Doctor. The TARDIS, The Raggedy Man, he is in love with the stars because it was breed into his DNA but he also sees the impossible wonder of them. Don’t show him that he can physically reach the stars. Don’t even do as so much to even imply that he could do so.” She could feel her heart tightening, contracting with the pain. His face was falling right before her eyes, his own green ones flying about the room trying desperately to think of something else to say.

“But Rive-“ Was all he managed out before she stopped him. The Doctor had to take her seriously, he had to trust her.

“I have to ask you to do something. I don’t even know if he does have it, but I need you to take his regeneration energy.” Her voice cracked, her eyes avoiding his as his were found glued to the side of her face in shock. “He can’t – he can’t regenerate. There’s no promise that he will be rid of the disease if he regenerates. I can’t have him living like that and dying over and over again by the same thing just begging for it to get so bad that it kills him completely.” Her husband wanted to interrupt, he wanted to tell her that every time regeneration reared its ugly head at him he wanted it to take him under, swallow him whole and just end everything already. But, he didn’t have a place to speak out against her wishes for their child. She was the one who had raised him, he didn’t even know the boy existed. River cleared her throat, her hand wiping at her face to rid her cheeks of tears he hadn’t seen fall. “I want you to take his regeneration energy, if he has any and he mustn’t know that you’ve done it.”

He tried to speak to her again, her name barely making it passed his lips before she held up a hand to stop him, her head hanging limply as tears clouded her vision. She had made this decision a long time ago and she had to make it alone, he couldn’t question her, he couldn’t help he was only making things worse. “But what if I regenerate, how do I explain that to him?”  

Her head snapped up from its downcast place where her fingers were drawing figure eights on the counter top, her eyes were wide when she looked at him, scared and terribly frightened. The look was a mixture of panic but also a look of complete simplicity towards his question. “You don’t.” River wiped at her face again with the back of her hands as she willed her voice to be strong. “You turn up looking like _you_.” She stepped forward, close enough to poke him in the chest. “This is the life I have had to lead, Doctor. I’m trying to keep him save, to let him live peacefully before his lungs give up on him. I need you to respect that.”

The Doctor nodded for a moment before he started to shake his head. “River,” he pleaded “he was made for so much more than just an average human life. Let me show him the stars, please. The planets must be calling his name. We’ll defeat aliens and we, you and I, we can find him a cure. We can show him our lives, our _real_ lives. And of course in between adventures you can teach him all about the archaeology you love while I teach him about Gallifrey and we –“ She stopped him, her finger pressed to his lips delicately.

Fresh tears burnt at the back of her eyelids as she forced herself to look him in the eye. “This was why I couldn’t tell you about him. You’re almost as excited about this as he is about everything.” She let out a shaky breath, her eyes darting from his only for a second. “I can’t,” River shook her head “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” She pulled away from him, creating space between them to avoid the temptation of her guilty mind. “You need to go and just, don’t – don’t come back.” She turned slightly just to see if he was going to move but the man didn’t budge.

The Doctor stood to her left, a few steps away his mouth open, stunned. He wasn’t speaking and some part of her was okay with that. She could hear his heavy breaths and although he wasn’t doing as she asked River found that she need him there, even with the space between them. “But,” He started, his hands clenched by his side. “He’s my son. I just found him, you can’t ask me to leave. River, just, just let me help.”

All she could do was shake her head before the words finally found her mouth. “No.” Her head continued to shake. “You turn up on Thursdays and you love him. That’s it. I can’t watch my baby suffer but I have to. You can’t just swoop in and be his superhero because I am trying to protect him and I don’t need your help.”

“You didn’t have to keep him here. Of all the places River you chose the 21st century.”

“I do, I do have to stay here. I’m not selfishly mending his health. This is what happens when you and I are together, this is what happens when we touch. Let Isaiah be a reminder to that.”

“River …” Her name was a dense exhale.

“No, you weren’t there when he was born, when he stopped breathing in his sleep, every time I wished you were there you weren’t. I was so, so scared and you –“

He was fidgeting now, his hands clenching and unclenching in frustration with her words. “You wouldn’t let me!” The Doctor shouted, almost a growl.

“Do you see the life you live?! How could I expose a child to that? A sick child none the less!”

“We can fix him!”

“He doesn’t need fixing!” She heard the sound of Isaiah’s footsteps in the hall. “I don’t think you seeing him will be a good idea.” She uttered in a scared voice hinting for the second time that day that he should leave.  

“Mr. Smith!” Isaiah exclaimed. It was too late, he had seen the older man now and there was no talking either of them out of the visit. “Why are you here?”

He knew he was going to be in trouble if he spoke so he did it anyway. Crouching down in front of the boy his face softened from the argument before tending to the child. “I thought we could play soccer. Do you want to go change your clothes?” Looking up at his mother before he answered, seeing the apprehension in her eyes he was weary to nod towards John Smith’s question. But he did so anyway, nodding slowly as his mother gave him a reassuring smile before he dropped his bag behind the door and darted upstairs to change his clothes.

“No TARDIS,” she whispered harshly. “No bigger on the inside, life changing, eye opening experiences. You got that? I want him home in one piece in an hour.”

[…]

Kicking the soccer ball between the two of them, trying to out trick the other The Doctor forgot about his anger with River and her anger with him. It was easy just to love the little boy when he threw himself into the moment without a care. He stopped thinking about how Isaiah was breathing heavily, and after three quarters of an hour was starting to get sluggish in his movements. The Doctor reminded himself to not think about it, _he’s dying but he’s not limited to his sick bed,_ he had to chant, to think over and over before it sunk in. Besides, all children ran out of energy at some point.

“Mum’s angry with you.” Isaiah huffed as he kicked the ball back to The Doctor and trotted over slowly. Knowing internally that their time was almost up, fifteen minutes was left and then 168 hours until he could see him again.  He mumbled something in return to the boy telling him not to worry about the adults, just to be a kid. “How do you know my mum? Because you do?”

 _She’s my wife, I’m a Time Lord and she didn’t tell me that you were my son, sorry about that._ He let out a heavy breath while he closed his eyes. There were so many ways in which he could answer that question, he wanted to do so honestly but he had to reserve most details. _My companions were her parents, they conceived your mother on my TARDIS._ No, that wouldn’t work. _She tried to kill me,_ no. _We’re married_ , again, no. Scrubbing a hand over his face The Doctor huffed and settled for the most simple. “Your mum and I, I’ve known her for a very long time we’re good friends, close friends.”

The boy seemed happy with the short and simple answer. Picking up the ball that was now at The Doctor’s feet Isaiah moved to throw it up in the air but a sudden thought stopped him from doing so. “Do you know about her stories of the Raggedy Man?” He asked innocently, green eyes wide as The Doctor hummed and nodded slowly unsure as to how far he could go on this topic. “Do you think he’s real? Mum says he’s not, but I think she’s lying. I think the Raggedy Man is real!” The Doctor stopped breathing, he had to stop doing something. His wife was telling their son stories about them under fictional pretences and the little boy saw right through her. 

The Doctor lowered himself to his sons level, eye to eye as they stood in the park, Isaiah still holding on to their soccer ball. “I think he is as real as your mother wants him to be. Her mum used to talk about the Raggedy Man too, when your mum and I were young that is. I don’t think someone like the Raggedy Man would be involved in both of their lives.”

“No one’s that old!” The boy laughed, his hand pawing at the air beside him.

The Doctor roared, “Exactly.”

Isaiah stopped, his smile fading slightly as he watched the lines of John Smith’s face. His eyes changed colour depending on how he moved. His mother’s eyes did that, so did his. He was told once about how The Raggedy Man was both young and old and how it could be seen through his eyes. That story came back to him as he stared at John Smith. “Are you the Raggedy Man?” He whispered quietly, stepping closer as if to avoid sharing his secret with the nearby tree. The man did say he was _twelve-hundred-and-three._

“Are you Isaiah Song?” The boy frowned, his little face crinkling. Isaiah didn’t understand what did his being himself have to do with John Smith and the Raggedy Man?  He nodded confirming audibly that he was indeed Isaiah Song. John Smith smiled and for the first time the boy noticed his bowtie - The Raggedy Man wore bowties. In an instant Isaiah’s whole face lit up faster than the night sky on New Years Eve, his eyes ran over The Doctor’s face committing it to memory as childish bedtime stories suddenly seemed so very real. “Shhh…” The Doctor whispered pressing his finger to his mouth. Isaiah complied easily happy to not tell his mother that he knew her secret.

“Am I going to see you more, Raggedy Man?” The boy whispered leaning ever closer to the point that their noses nearly touched.

“Every Thursday if that’s okay with you and well, if your mum still lets me.”

“She will!” Isaiah jumped explaining that his mother wouldn’t turn him down if he asked for anything, well maybe she would say no about ice-cream for breakfast but this was completely different. She couldn’t say no, simply couldn’t.

Instead of believing the young child’s words about his mother’s attitude The Doctor worried at his bottom lip as he and the boy walked back to his house but Isaiah was calm, bouncing the ball every few steps happily. “John?” He asked, stopping as they passed his mother’s gate “are you my Raggedy Man now?” The Doctor stopped beside him, his own mind compelled. But it was true, he was Amy’s Raggedy Man and through her he became River’s. Really, if he thought about it, his spirit was already alive in Isaiah. The Doctor nodded, he supposed he was. “I’m glad.” With a nod Isaiah slipped his little arms around The Doctor’s waist squeezing him tightly before pulling away and skipping up the stairs.

River pulled the door open just as Isaiah reached for the handle, smiling lovingly at her little boy she ruffled his fluffy hair as he past her, slipping into the house with his own silly smile. “Tea?” She called out to The Doctor who was loitering at the gate unsure if he was welcome in her home again. To be honest she let him see Isaiah on this day, he wasn’t about ready to push that luck and stroll into her home. But she asked, offered really, and who was he to turn down a cup of tea with his wife.

With tea River sat a pack of Jammie Dodgers by her husband’s arm as she put a glass of juice down next to the animatedly talking Isaiah who was too busy explaining his math homework instead of actually doing the math homework. River muttered something about being in the study if they should so need her before pocketing a biscuit and pulling back from the table to collect her own tea.

The Doctor helped Isaiah get started with the second grade math work his teacher had given him instead of the work the other children in reception were doing. He was far too smart compared to the rest of them and worryingly it was starting to show. Isaiah was destined to be a smart boy, he might be mostly human but there is still Time Lord in him even a little bit would keep him ahead of the other children.

The boy didn’t _really_ need help with the math homework. Instead he used it as an opportunity to blabber on about visiting a Year One class twice a week to keep him ‘mentally stimulated’. He patiently listened when The Doctor, _his_ Raggedy Man, started to speak, explaining the simple mathematics in confusing circles.  

Isaiah pushed him away after only a few minutes, the man’s rambling talk and constantly moving limbs eventually getting to the little boy who was attempting to grind through his work before his mother got mad. The Doctor left him, the child’s tongue stuck out in concentration as he soaked in the quite absence and The Doctor himself curiously crossed the hall in search of River Song and her office.

He found River with her nose buried in a large book in a little study that was spat out from the living room. “I’m sorry.” The Doctor muttered as he watched her body tense, he couldn’t sneak up on her, she always knew that he was there. “I’m sorry that I turned up without notice like always. I’m sorry that my being here is causing a headache for you but I do still want to see him. I never thought that I would have children again, it never even crossed my mind and when it dared to I shoved the thought away because I was scared. But now, there he is sitting in that room doing math homework and he’s breathing. He’s _real_. I never knew how much I wanted it again until today. Last week I was scared, I didn’t want to believe you but today, playing with him, talking to him. Wow, River I just – I can’t walk away from that.” River had put her book down so she could watch her husband fiddle in the doorway, his hands in his pockets as his feet shuffled nervously. “I overstepped a boundary today.”

She nodded; “you did.”

“But I still mean it. Maybe when he’s older, we can talk to him. _You_ can talk to him he might want to go see The Sisters of the Infinite Schism. He might want to live.” River nodded again, although she wasn’t happy with the idea. The Doctor had a point though, maybe they could sit down with him tell him about the TARDIS and their adventures, tell him that he could be cured and let him do so. She didn’t know how much she actually wanted him to do so. She was protecting her boy like her parents didn’t get to protect her. That was her greatest sacrifice. She didn’t want it to go to waste but she didn’t want her son to die. 


	3. The Same Night

 

Thursday Afternoons

The Same Night

Isaiah had awoken in the night only to climb into her bed. She didn’t have a problem with the five-year-old curling warmly into her body at all. Instead, River tucked her arm around him, her hand on his chest as it rose and fell with his sleepy breaths. Book in her spare hand, glasses on her nose, River Song relaxed into the cosy warmth of her child and another night of domesticated bliss.

When Isaiah was a newborn she had considered this life to be a prison somehow worse from Stormcage as her little baby, tiny and fragile struggled to breathe. And she struggled with the decision to trust 21st Century Earth’s doctors.

River had picked this time and place because she had roughly grown into it, it felt like home and she would not have preferred anything else for her ailing babe. But she did fear for the medical staff and his curious DNA but her baby wasn’t as remarkable as she feared he would have been. For a little while she had help on the inside too, a nurse in Leadworth who was always there to hold her hand when he wasn’t off gallivanting with her husband and her mother. Rory Williams and Amy Pond didn’t chance by her door any more but they did get to see their grandson a few times, enough to know that he and River would be okay in life if they were to so ever leave them.

River was surprised actually, that her loud mouthed mother didn’t spoil her secret to a younger version of River or The Doctor himself. But the Pond’s managed to keep her best kept secret and did so with absolute awe. She was thankful for that, she was thankful for them. Rory got her through a large majority of the medical jargon when Isaiah was sick and Amy, when she was around was a constant wall of support. She missed them terribly now that they were gone but she knew, if ever the urge should find her that she could reach them. 

Her mind drifted between her book and her parents wondering if maybe she could sneak a visit to them when Isa was at school. River shook her head at the thought, she wouldn’t do it. One visit would turn into thirty and she promised herself a life away from that.

Turning back to her book River didn’t quite notice the man standing in her bedroom doorway, she didn’t hear him land his TARDIS in her backyard on his heavy footsteps on her wooden stairs, she was oblivious to the whole interaction but some part of her hummed just _knowing_ that he was there. It didn’t stop her from flinching when her eye caught his figure.

Tearing her eyes away from the book in her hand, she closed it to attend to him more fully. One could never know when he was about to spout mountains of information at lightning speed and expect her to remember it all. But the look on his face stopped her, it scared her. The Doctor looked like he was carrying the knowledge of her impending doom, for a moment she worried that he had seen an older Isaiah, a _sicker_ Isaiah, a _dead_ Isaiah. Instantly her fingers curled into her son’s skirt, her hand pressing down a little harder on his chest.

“I don’t want to do this, you know. It’s not right.” River was compelled, confused and then it clicked. Isa’s regeneration energy.

The Doctor moved further into the room, his hand skirting over the end of his wife’s bed as he watched the peacefully sleeping child with a fatherly look of wonder that, in turn broke River Song’s heart. “He’ll sleep a lot longer tomorrow.” He told River, not looking up as he pushed the boy’s floppy hair off of his forehead, explaining the after effects of losing the regeneration energy but she knew what it was like, she had done it once to save him. “Just, keep an eye on him okay?” River rolled her eyes affectionately as she raised a hand to his cheek with a comment concerning when was she never not keeping a watchful eye on her son.

The Doctor inched closer hesitant to begin. “Will he wake if I pick him up?” River shook her head as she shifted to unwrap her arm from the child. Her husband continued to move slowly still hesitant around the boy and his wife as he went about this task. He replaced River’s arm with his own as he slipped the other one under Isaiah’s legs before slowly lifting him from his mother’s bed.

River followed her husband slowly as he carried the boy from her room and across the hall into his own. She moved to switch the bedside light on as The Doctor lowered the still heavily sleeping child to his own cold sheets. River watched, that’s all she could do and even then not for very long as the gold energy swirled from her husband’s hands as he lowered them to their son. Her eyes darted around the room, skirting across the paintwork that took her weeks to complete.

The gold swirl of the time vortex, of her husband’s regeneration energy mixing with her sons’ much brighter one illuminated the walls making the dark blue seem endless and the purples, reds and greens of the painted galaxies come alive. She wondered if maybe the painted white stars were alive for a little while. Energy escaping her husband’s hands and trying to find a way home, instead taking purchase against her son’s painted walls.

She doesn’t see it when her husband cried, her eyes fixated on Galileo Galilei’s words, the ones she painted on her baby’s wall after she was forced out of the NICU and sent home late one night. _‘I have loved the stars too fondly to be afraid of the night’_ Funny that, she had imposed that thought upon her son and now she stood and watched as his father stole things from him in the night. He should be afraid, terribly so. But the boy continued to sleep, dead to the world. Which had been a good thing when he was an infant but perhaps not so much anymore. 

River didn’t notice when the light in the room died down and she hadn’t noticed she was crying until The Doctor was standing in front of her his hands cupping her face as his thumbs wiped away her silent tears. “Are you okay?” He asked her softly, bending his knees so he could properly look her in the eye.

She nodded softly as she pulled away to press a kiss to Isa’s hair before flicking the light of and leaving the room swiftly. The Doctor followed, feeling as much like a scolded puppy as she was a horrible mother. He watched her slowly slink back to her bedroom and hide under the security of her blankets before he moved towards her.

Crawling onto the bed, a hand on either side of her body The Doctor tugged at the blankets hiding her face. “You asked me to do it.” He whispered to her as she looked up at him with glassy eyes. River nodded slowly. “I can’t leave either of you with nothing.” Her eyebrows knitted as she studied his face above her. It had been so long since she had seen him last, _properly_ seen him that she almost missed the intention written across his face. He swooped in a heartbeat his mouth capturing hers as the energy surged between them. River tried to fight her husband knowing exactly what he was doing but knew there was no point in getting him to stop as she felt the warmth tingle through her body.

New regeneration energy and an old but favourite love.

They didn’t stop with transferring Isaiah’s energy, instead they took that quiet fragile moment and they made it theirs, entangled in the other while they slowly loved again.

She cried later that night, waking the Time Lord from his slumber as his wife beside him trembled with her sobs. “You shouldn’t have done that.” She hit him on the chest, hard. Admittedly, not as hard as an angry Clara. “You shouldn’t have given me your regeneration energy.” She hit him again for good measure as The Doctor instead optioned to wrap her in his arms.

“It was what I took from Isaiah. Three, maybe a little bit more. He didn’t have much, River and I couldn’t leave the both of you with nothing.” She shook her head, no, she wanted him to leave her with nothing. She didn’t want him to change anything about their lives she just needed to ensure that Isaiah wasn’t plagued by what was surely the Time Lord curse.

There was no use arguing, he wouldn’t take it back even if she tried. He was stronger than her, he knew how to control it. Instead she snuggled in next to her husband, being overly affectionate like she always saved for their scarce moments like this. “Doctor,” She whispered into his chest. “We never did diaries.”

“I know where we are.” He mumbled back at her as he laid on his back, her arms crossed over his chest and her hands laying atop of her limbs.

“But, I don’t.” She shifted, moving closer to his face. She couldn’t tell from the lines on his face, it had been so long that she could no longer read their travels and somehow that terrified her. “Manhattan, I know – I know we’ve done Manhattan. Your clothes are different, the colour, it’s darker.” She could see his eyes crinkle in the darkness, amusement creasing his skin. “What?” River asked as his expression called out to her own amusement.   

The Doctor shook his head, “’River always knows.’” He whispered as he brushed her fingertips against his lips. “You always know and now you can’t quite place it.” The Doctor chuckled.  

River rolled her eyes at his amusement. “It’s been a long time, Doctor. I’ve been preoccupied.” She shifted again, this time slipping off of his body and out of the bed as she tiptoed across the cold carpet wrapped in his shirt only while she fetched her striking blue diary from the bookshelf across the room.

She slid one knee onto the bed as she stood, diary in hand, all the while flicking through the loved pages with a fond remembrance. A chuckle would leave her lips every now and then, a snigger or a full blown laugh as she passed one yellow and weathered page after the next. The Doctor didn’t push her, instead he sat with his back against the headboard and watched as memories flowed across her face. He knew she hadn’t forgotten them completely and he understood that five-years with Isaiah in a linear fashion would have pushed some of their adventures to the lesser of two priorities. River caught his attention when she clicked her tongue, her delicate fingernails tapping at a certain page before she looked up to see him.

Closing her diary River dropped it on the end of her bed, knowing that it would be safe wherever she so chose to put it. “I know exactly where we are.” She hummed, crawling on all fours along the length of his long legs. Flopping herself next to him with a playful huff River bit into her bottom lip, her eyes tracing his face in the moonlight. “It means we’re linear.” River spoke, her thoughts flowing from her mind and through her mouth.

“What does?” The Doctor asked as he relaxed into her company and only that.

“I was pregnant with Isaiah last time I saw you, Sweetie. Four weeks after Manhattan you were living on that silly little cloud and I dragged you out, remember?” He nodded, of course he did. The Ponds had left him, _she_ had left him and he was happy just to brood selfishly on his own. The adventure she took him on was purely business; an archaeological trip to Egypt _before_ Cleopatra’s reign. It was  a pity really, they always had so much fun with Cleo.

River, as she explained now pulled him out of his head in the clouds mood simply to be with him. She knew she was pregnant then, she had known since Manhattan she just hadn’t known what to do. She was going to tell him in Egypt but she couldn’t do it, so instead she stuck by his side, held his hand as she explained the wonders of her field and he listened, contently unaware that it would be the last time he would have to spend with her in a very long time.

She wondered briefly, as she knew he would be doing, why she didn’t risk using other means to get out of the house, out of 21st century England, off the planet completely to play scandalous games with her husband whilst her babe slept. But she knew the answer was simple, to do so was to realize the life she left behind, to give her heart back to the man she loved and to realize just how hard he loved her back. This was why she hadn’t looked for him in five-years, why she avoided him when Amy and Rory were still around because she knew that everything she sacrificed would walk right through the door the minute he swaggered out of his TARDIS.

It was too late really, he was back now a stowaway in the night as he travelled between seeing their son on Thursday afternoons and climbing into her bed in the darkness. River thought it was possible that she could do this without giving herself into The Doctor again, but it was too late. Her heart was yet another thing he stole that night.  


	4. The Planetarium

Thursday Afternoons

The Fifth Week - The Planetarium

It didn’t take long, but eventually he had dedicated Thursday afternoons with his son. He went on adventures with Clara on Wednesdays but Thursdays were always reserved for his little boy. Those boring days became something with increasing importance and as every week passed and he watched his son grow The Doctor’s being there became an inescapable need. He couldn’t back out, if not for Isaiah’s sake but for his own. He needed these days like he needed air. Life was becoming unbearable in between each visit.

He was never late. In face some weeks he arrived early only to sit in the park or on River’s front steps. Some days River let him inside, when she was home and other days – more recently – he would wait by the gate of Isaiah’s school until the bell rung for the end of the day and the boy was allowed to leave. Isaiah had told The Doctor quietly that he loved that, walking out of the building to find him waiting with all the other mum’s and dads. It made him feel like everyone else.

After he collected the little boy for their Thursday afternoon The Doctor stayed as long as River Song would let him which, as each week passed got significantly longer. Some nights he stayed through dinner, others he got to tuck the boy in and on even better nights he followed his wife into her bedroom and fell asleep alongside her.

It was still a little bit surreal. And then again, he wasn’t exactly a _new_ father either. The Doctor imagined that this would have been his response regardless of how River told him, when she told him and he _knew_ that if one of his children from Gallifrey, as impossible as it was, turned up on the doorstep to his TARDIS he would be just as scared. But, even though he was terrified of Isaiah, of everything that would come from him, The Doctor was also intrigued.

This child was a magical wonder. He was smart and curious, he was childish yet serious and he was dying but he was so alive.

The Doctor wanted to show him the stars, desperately. He wanted to lock the little boy inside the TARDIS and show him a lifetime of things. He wanted to show Isaiah the beginning and the end of the universe just because he knew the young boy would never get that chance. He wanted to show him what his mother was denying him, but he couldn’t go against River’s word.

“John!” Isaiah called, his arms swinging as he crossed the road, his too big school bag pulling back his speed. “John, John!” He continued to call as he reached the sidewalk. “It’s Thursday, have you come to see me because it’s Thursday?!” The Doctor nodded as the boy, once he had reached the older man, wrapped his arms around his legs and squeezed tight. “But I have homework.” He mused before continuing to speak without taking a breath. “But I don’t always have to do my homework, right. ‘cause I’m really smart and I get extra anyway and it’s really easy. I don’t think mum would mind. What do you want to do today Mr. Smith?” The Doctor took a step back as the boy continued to speak, his words flying at a shocking speed.

Lifting the bag from the boy’s shoulder’s The Doctor reminded him to take a breath. “How about we get you inside first, check in with mum and then think of something?” The boy nodded as he surrendered his large back to the man who made it look too small.

Once inside, the two of them leaning over the dining room table with a map River had wonderfully supplied. Fingers prodded at the page, Isaiah pointing out street names he remembers with good candy stores or beautiful public spaces. While the boy spoke, his face alight as he taught John Smith the wonders of his town and city The Doctor had already formed a plan.

River looked at him with worry when he asked to have the little boy for longer than an hour the look of adventure alighting his eyes. Hands wrapped around a mug she nodded slowly. “Great, I just have to go get my car and we can go.” The Doctor tapped the boy on the head before heading for the front door with a comment about coming back.

“He’s just brilliant, Mum.” Isaiah beamed after The Doctor had left, causing his mother’s worried face to brighten.   “He talks really fast and he’s really funny!” The boy giggled, his head thrown back with an obvious memory. “Do you think he likes me, mum? ‘Cause I really like him.” He turn from her for a moment to reach of an apple slice that had been placed on the dining table waiting for Isaiah’s arrival before he got home and placed one in his mouth.

River hummed softly, an affectionate smile slipping across her mouth towards her sons beautiful innocence. Inside, her heart was aching. “Oh, Isa.” She stepped closer to the dining table so she could pull him into a hug. “I’m sure he adores you.” She whispered, her hand ruffling his hair before she let him go. “Are you happy to go with him, Isa?” River asked softly. She trusted her husband, really, she did. He knew better and he also knew that she would hunt him down and destroy his hat collection. But, the important thing in this situation was Isaiah. He needed to be comfortable. With another two apple slices in his mouth at the one time the young boy nodded vigorously. “Okay, well he said longer than an hour so you’ll need to take a coat with you, anything else?” The boy shook his head as he slipped off his chair, fruit in hand and ran up the stairs.  

She moved to the front door, standing with it open as she watched The Doctor park a car in front of her house. She was shocked, genuinely shocked. “Where on earth did you get that?” She asked once he got out and walked through her front gate.

“The TARDIS.” He answered simply and when she asked if he could actually, _properly_ drive it he just nodded humbly. “Do you want to come?” The Doctor asked softly as he caught her studying him with a worried face.

River shook her head quickly, her hand flying out to his arm in reassurance. “Oh, no. Gosh, no. It’s your time with him. I don’t want to intrude.” The Doctor shook his head muttering to her that it was nonsense and she was welcome to come. But River Song stuck to her guns allowing her husband and son some time together on their own. She had the little boy to herself to five-years. The Doctor now needed some time to catch up. “Where are you taking him?” She asked with interest.

“The museum. They have a planetarium if I remember correctly, right?” River nodded, Isaiah had only been begging her to take him but she had always been hesitant to do so.

Smiling brilliantly River nodded, “He’ll love that.” She told her husband who in turn smiled back.

Isaiah came clunking down the stars if not but two seconds after that. “Are you coming, mum?” The little boy asked at the bottom of the stars.

“Oh, you know. Isa I would love too, but I just had a whole heap of papers handed in at school today and I need to mark them. You and John are going to have a brilliant time.” She beamed, as she moved towards the table by the door the plant from six weeks ago replaced with an empty space. “Take this.” River handed Isaiah her mobile phone. “In case you need me for anything, call the house phone.” She looked to The Doctor, a silent warning. She was entrusting him with her son’s life and he was to call if anything should so happen before trying to deal with it on his own.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” The Doctor asked again, he could see it on her face. She did, she really wanted to but she was giving them their time and as much as The Doctor respected that he really didn’t mind his wife joining them.

With a shake of her head and a reminder that she really did have papers to mark The Doctor took Isaiah’s hand and lead the little boy out of the house, leaving his wife standing in the doorway only to watch as he lead her son away. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. They were coming back but somehow it felt like her son was being taken from her, carted away to another life because she was no longer fit for him. She feared this, but she always feared she wouldn’t see him go. That he would be snatched in the night and she would have been helpless to stop it. River watched from the front step as The Doctor ensured Isaiah was buckled into the car before climbing in himself and taking off. She really did worry that he had no idea how to drive the machine but she was calm. He wouldn’t hurt their son, not intentionally and although he could be bigheaded about some things he wouldn’t do so around the boy in fear of hurting him. River trusted that fact as she closed the door the behind her and left her two boys to their day while she tended to the papers River now wished she hadn’t set for her students.

Upon arriving at the museum that had held chapters in both the lives of The Doctor and his very young son, both couldn’t contain their excitement. There was something about history, about its age and for The Doctor about the way it could be changed that made museums so alluring, so tempting and completely divine.

Isaiah ran ahead of The Doctor like a child let loose in a candy shop. Really, what was the older man to expect from a child of an archaeologist and Time Lord. He followed behind eagerly, letting Isaiah tug him through his favourite exhibits, ones Isaiah admittedly explained he had seen several times before, but they were still his favourite. Slowly, The Doctor learnt that River had a great part to do with the museum too. Occasionally Isaiah would point something out and claim that his mother had been a part of the research team. She didn’t go on digs though, not anymore. She didn’t want to be away from her son and she certainly didn’t want to pull him away from their life. The Doctor knew it to be a different story now. River Song was scared that she would fall in love with her haphazard travel again and endanger her son’s life in the process.

They had been there for half an hour before Isaiah gravitated towards the Planetarium doors all on his own. “Mum never lets me go in there.” He huffed, his hands slapping his sides as he gave his best little boy pout.

“Do you want to go in?” He asked, watching as the boy fiddled with the scarf around his neck. Isaiah nodded slowly, his eyes wide. Mum wasn’t around, she wasn’t saying ‘no’ and John Smith was saying ‘yes’, Isaiah decided he liked this man a lot.

The Doctor pushed one of the large doors open, holding it as the little boy slipped under his arm and eagerly went inside, his whole body vibrating with excitement. Following the boy who was tripping over his feet as he stared at the illuminated ceiling The Doctor stepped forward to scoop the child up as he watched on with wonder, his eyes wide and his little mouth agape. ‘Wow’ came out of his mouth more than once as The Doctor found them two spare seats and sat them down.

“Do you think it’s really that big out there?” Isaiah asked as the screen above and around them rotated slowly showing them one of the pinwheel galaxies in all its glory. The Doctor nodded with a whispered utterance of yes and in even quieter;

“It’s even bigger.” Turning to look at the boy The Doctor found Isaiah’s eyes closed. “What are you doing?” He whispered, leaning into the child.

“Mum always says to savour a moment. Close your eyes, listen to it, smell it, try and remember it in your head. Mum’s full of useful facts!” His eyes were still closed but he tilted his head towards The Doctor anyway. “What do you think space smells like, Mr. Smith?” Isaiah asked. He replied with something metallic. “Why do you think that?” Question after question, the boy never gave up and his curiosity towards space was achingly starting to show.

The Doctor shrugged beside him, his shoulder’s rubbing against the boy’s arm. “Space junk. There’s a lot of metal out there, don’t you think?” Isaiah nodded, his eyes open now as the picture around them changed and someone spoke into a microphone, explaining to those in the audience what they were seeing. 

“Do you think that there could be life on other planets?” The boy murmured as the overhead voice spoke about there once being water on Mars, and the chances that some could still be found. The Doctor hummed, he didn’t know if he was allowed to say. He had certainly seen other life but this time was yet to do so and he didn’t know how River would feel about her son knowing such facts. Then again, he didn’t have to know that it was actual fact. “I quite like Mars, it’s my favourite of the planets. What about you, Mr. Smith?”

“Gallifrey” He whispered unintentionally.

“That’s not a real planet. I know because I know them all. Mum, for my birthday got me a big book and it has everything about the universe.” The Doctor laughed, happily at the little boy beside him while he ruffled his hair.

“That book needs some serious editing, then.”

The boy shrugged with a mumbled ‘probably’.

It was dark when The Doctor pulled up at River’s home, the real stars shining above them almost welcoming as The Doctor lifted the sleeping child from the backseat of his car. He carried the boy into his house, the child on his arm asleep and drooling somewhat. Climbing the stairs steadily he made sure to tuck the child in and turn on a night light before kissing him goodnight and slipping out of the room.

Knowing the boy was soundly sleeping safely in his own bed The Doctor dragged himself back down the stairs in search of his wife. He found River in the living room, curled into the couch with a stack of papers both in front of her and beside her. Glasses perched on her nose, pen caught between her fingertips, he watched her for a moment as her brow crinkled and her pen lowered to scribble something on the page resting atop of her knee.

“Don’t mark them to harshly, Professor Song.” The Doctor teased, knowing exactly what she was like and the look on her face, the crease in her brow definitely showed no mercy. Looking up slowly she eyed her husband over the top of her glasses as he removed the marked work from the couch so he could settle in beside her. “Unfortunately, Isa is out like a light.” He smiled, his arm wrapping around her shoulders as he pulled her closer.

“Did he love it?” She asked softly as she removed her glasses, transitioning from professor to wife.

The Doctor grinned, he couldn’t help it as the look on Isaiah’s face in that dark room came back to him so brilliantly in love with the whole thing. “He didn’t want to leave. Hence why we’re home so late. It took the security guards telling him that the stars had to go to bed before he relented. He wasn’t too convinced, but.” River laughed deeply. Of course Isaiah was sceptical, that would never change.

“So,” River grinned. “He’s asleep?”

“Dead to the world, in a manner of speaking.” He lent closer, his smile growing ever wider as he kissed her deeply.

River pulled back ever so slightly her eyes pleading before the worlds left her mouth. “Stay. Stay the night, please.” She spoke on only a whisper as he lent of the top of her, overbearing and for the moment in control. River watched as he contemplated her plea. He had every reason to go, but he also had obligations to stay. She wasn’t holding him down though, if he wanted to go he could and if he decided to leave in the middle of the night she wouldn’t blame him. She understood the tug that pulled on his mind, the need for adventure and longing to be among the stars. She watched it all in her son, it was enough to hold one back from their calling it was too much to hold them both back, even selfishly for one night.

He nodded slowly, giving himself over to her in surrender. He could only deny her so many times and tonight, after spending the day with Isaiah, not twitching once or complaining about the slowness of time in its right order. He couldn’t say no as he pressed against her on her living room couch. Their lives suddenly domestic and for once he didn’t quite mind it. River gleamed as she lent up to kiss him softly, happy that her wish was granted but it didn’t last long when Isaiah’s shout circled through the house and without thinking she was up and off the couch in two seconds flat.

The Doctor wrapped his hand around her wrist as she moved passed him, stopping the woman in her tracks as her son called out again. “Can I get him?” He asked softly watching as the woman nodded.

Vaulting up the stairs two at a time The Doctor stopped at Isaiah’s door, the little boys name written across the white wood as he took a moment to even his breathing before cracking the door open. “Raggedy Man?” Isaiah whispered quietly, sitting up in the middle of his bed his hair ruffled with sleep and his eyes still drooping.

“Hey, buddy.” The Doctor whispered back, slowly inching his way across the room before he sat down next to the child who had seemed so distressed. “You okay?” Isaiah nodded softly as he curled himself into The Doctor’s side, content with the comfortable warmth he found there.

“I had a bad dream that’s all, I just wanted my mum.”

“I can go get her if you want, it was just that she was marking papers and I wasn’t really doing anything so I thought … but it doesn’t matter, I’ll go get her.” He was about to get up, when Isaiah’s tiny hand on his arm stopped him.  He sat back down, relaxing into the child’s matrass as the boy curled even deeper against him. He started to hum a soft song from his own childhood on Gallifrey as he felt the child’s body go limp and his own eyes grew heavy. The Doctor was going to get up, to leave the room but he wanted to make sure that Isaiah was actually asleep before he did so.

River was standing over him when he opened his eyes, her hand on his cheek as she lulled him back into wakefulness. Helping him to unwind himself from Isaiah she laughed softly, commenting on how she finished her marking only to realize he hadn’t returned an hour and a half after he went to check on the boy. The Doctor blushed, embarrassed that he had fallen asleep, it wasn’t like him and his wife made sure to comment on that fact but that was all. She laughed at him softly before tugging him across the hall and ending their night in the same bed she had slept alone in (well aside from Isaiah on a few occasions) for five years.

[…]

The sound of little feet on the carpet pulled John Smith out of his slumber. He didn’t even know that he was sleeping softly until he heard the feet and then a very faint whisper of his name. Instantly he was awake, ready to tend to the child’s every need if the little boy as so easily wished it. Rubbing his eyes as he sat up The Doctor half expected a confused look on the child’s face concerning why the older man, his friend, was sleeping soundly in his mother’s bed. But there was no question and there was no confusion, instead Isaiah asked softly if he could climb in with him for a little while before his stomach started to growl for breakfast.

He shifted ever so slightly to allow the little boy some room as Isaiah curled into the warmth of his body and fell back asleep again his fluffy hair tickling at The Doctor’s chin as he slept. Half an hour later the boy awoke again, his little finger poking at John Smith’s face in a silence, yet persistent attempt at waking the man.

“Shh, mum’s sleeping.” He whispered loudly as The Doctor opened his mouth to protest. He stopped, turning his head to see that River was facing them, curled onto her side, her whole body relaxed with sleep. “Can you make me pancakes?” With a happy smile The Doctor pulled himself from his wife’s bed, Isaiah who was still sitting next to him now clasped to his hip.

They made it down to the kitchen without a sound, as Isaiah’s head fell heavily on The Doctor’s shoulder while they moved their way through the small and sleepy little home. He hadn’t once caught what the time was, but sunshine was starting to peep through the blinds rather rudely so The Doctor could only agree that it was morning.

“I can only reach the cereal in that cupboard, but I don’t like cereal on Fridays.” The boy spoke, standing on the bench as he pointed John Smith in the direction of select ingredients he knew River kept.

Turning back to the boy, his arms full of items The Doctor grinned. “What do you have on Fridays instead?”

“Cereal.” With a shrug of his shoulders Isaiah answered simply. “It’s okay that we’re making pancakes, they’re for mum too!” Somehow The Doctor knew it wasn’t going to be a good idea and that no matter what happened Isaiah was going to blame it all on being his idea and he was _supposed_ to be the adult. Good thing he knew how to make killer pancakes then, at least he could save his sorry hide somewhat.

After avoiding the temptation of eating the pancake batter before it was cooked, and allowing Isaiah to slip some chocolate chips in. The Doctor piled the breakfast sweets onto three plates adorned with strawberries (Isaiah’s idea) and sugar (The Doctor was going to say that was Isaiah’s idea). The Doctor took a step back to admire his handy work, Isaiah’s little flour covered self beside him, mimicking his hands on his hips.

Temptation winning out the little boy raced towards his breakfast eagerly, so much so that he knocked the tub of flour over in the process causing in to thumb against the tiles and scatter a white mist across the room.

“Sorry.” He pulled back from the bench sheepishly, his feet leaving tiny childish marks on the floor. Looking up from the mess to Isaiah The Doctor worried about how he was going to approach cleaning the whole thing up but the look of utter devastation on the little boy’s face was enough to make him forget what day of the week it was let alone that there was a mess to be cleaned.

Swooping forward he picked Isaiah up and sat him on the corner of the bench. “Are you okay?” He asked softly, holding the little boy’s chin in his hand. It hadn’t mattered that the flour hit the floor, he was already covered in it from attempting to help cook that the accident hadn’t made a different to the small child. With a sniffle, Isaiah nodded softly, his eyes still refusing to look at The Doctor. “Isa, it’s okay. It’s really okay, we’re going to take the breakfast up to mum and I’m going to come back down here and clean up. You’re okay, that’s all that matters. Now, how would your mum clean this up?” He asked and the child shrugged, his face a little lighter.

“Sometimes mummy just looks at it and sighs.” Isaiah mumbled.

The Doctor took an easy opportunity to joke: “I don’t think she cleans it up with a sigh.”  

“No,” Isaiah shook his head. “She gets frustrated because I break things lots.” It was The Doctor’s turn to shake his head as he picked the child up from the bench and held him tightly, assuring him that it was definitely not the case. When the reassurance didn’t work, The Doctor managed the boy in one arm and a plate of breakfast in the other before he scaled the stairs delivering them both to the still heavily sleeping River.

Putting the food down The Doctor busied himself in snuggling the boy next to his mother before running his hand over her cheek and lulling her out of her sleep. He dropped a kiss to the crown of her head, explaining briefly that Isa needed some reassurance that he wasn’t too much hard work before he ruffled the boy’s hair and left them with a shared plate of pancakes.

He didn’t intrude after that. Instead The Doctor went about cleaning the kitchen to the best of his ability knowing that a school lunch would have to be finished (half of it already being in the fridge and done) and whatever else River’s morning routine consisted of. But whatever it was she would want access to her kitchen, her clean kitchen. And he was right, not forty minutes later was River down the stairs and sliding into the kitchen, her arms wrapping around his shoulders.

“Thank you.” She whispered. “I forget sometimes that he’s there and I just, my day gets to me. I never realized he noticed.” The Doctor nodded softly, it had really been no problem. “Nothing cuddles can’t fix, that’s something I’m always willing to do. Although, perhaps when he’s not getting flour all over my duvet cover.” She grinned and he should have been shocked, but really he wasn’t. His River Song had always been fierce and overly confident, she oozed of a woman who could survive on her own, which she could – but she had always been a cuddlier. He loved that that had never changed.

“Next week?” He asked softly, double checking with an awful, unnatural to him insecurity as he did at the end of every visit.

She grinned even wider then as she lent up on her toes to kiss his cheek as she confirmed with a happy smile, “See you next week.” 


	5. The Hospital Part I

Thursday Afternoons

The Eighth Week - The Hospital Part I

He knew how much it meant to Isa, having someone waiting for him when the bell rang at the end of the day. River did so on Monday’s but by the end of the week for the little boy it seemed like years ago. So The Doctor turned up early, as he did on the occasional Thursday. He stood just inside the gate, near a group of waiting mothers who seemed friendly enough to stand near but not completely approach.

The bell rang and within seconds the schoolyard filled with loud children. He watched them with a smile knowing that Isaiah would pick him out of the throng of children all much larger than him. He stood, waiting long before all the children had cleared a few strays lingering around the gate or the school’s front steps. He continued to wait as anxiety ebbed at his mind. He was about to turn, to leave and head back to River’s place. Perhaps he had just been picked up early? Shoving his hands in his pockets he was about to turn around, tail between his legs and try River’s house first. Maybe he just had the wrong day, maybe he missed a few Thursdays. A voice called out to him, heels clicking behind him stopping the sullen man in his tracks.

“Mr Song? Mr Song?!” The Doctor turned, somewhat shocked at the title as a woman in a grey suit skirt and jacket approached him as quickly as she could from the other side of the yard, her hand waving above her head to flag his attention. “Mr Song?” She huffed, finally catching up as he met her halfway. “Hi, you don’t know me I’m the Headmistress Lucinda Piers. You pick up Isaiah Song some Thursdays. His mother informed me not to worry, you’re the boys paternal father, correct?” Silently The Doctor nodded, his hands fidgeting in his pockets worriedly. “Perhaps she didn’t tell you, Isaiah didn’t make it to school today. He’s in hospital.” The words fell around him, gluing the man to the ground as his hearts started to pound frantically. “Poor dear, came down with another infection. He never does to well with those he’s …” She stopped, her hand over her chest as she caught the startled look on The Doctor’s face. “Were you not informed?” She asked softly, her hand coming out to touch his arm as the colour drained from his face.

“Whe – Where? What hospital?”

“General. Mr Song, you’ve not been through this before?” Lucinda asked tenderly as she watched his worry. She had known Isaiah Song for a little close to a year and a half, the boy was an absolute dream and brilliant. She oversaw his extended classes in the year levels above him and she also saw how his ill-ness debilitated him during the flu seasons. Her heart ached for the man in front of her, the man who she was informed hadn’t known his son and was only just now experiencing the debilitations of the young boy’s Cystic Fibrosis.  

The Doctor shook his head as he pulled back from the Headmistress. He couldn’t find words, his heart was in his throat and fear clouded his vision. He just looked at the woman apologetically hoping that she would understand that he really needed to leave. He needed to find his son, he needed to be with them. The headmistress nodded slowly watching as he backed out of the school’s gates and ran down the street.

The madman didn’t even think about his time travelling blue box, instead he ran all the way to the local hospital not stopping once to catch his breath and when he did stop his body practically slumped against the nurses’ station in the children’s ward his son’s name barely making it out of his mouth as he tried to catch his breath. The young nurse behind the desk didn’t even ask his relation as she pointed down the hall and told him the room number sympathetically.

Collecting his numb limbs The Doctor forced himself to stand up straight. His shoulders arched back and his chin lifted forward, he would appear calm, collected and only a little bit worried. He wasn’t going to let Isaiah see him like this. Evening out his breathing The Doctor shook his whole body before he started to take slow steps down the hall, his eyes already on the number hanging above his son’s room.

He knocked softly, once, twice before the door was pulled open and River slipped out. She jumped at the sight of him, her hand on her chest. Letting out a held breath River huffed before smiling weakly and letting him follow her into the room.

“He’s fine.” She told him quietly. “Honestly. He had a bit of trouble breathing at school and nothing was working. They sent him here and called me.” She tucked her arm around his, pulling the man closer as a way to reassure him as Isaiah came into their view his eyes closed as he was practically being swallowed in the trite hospital bed. “He’s sick so it doesn’t make the situation any easier. His doctor thought that while we were here they should run some check-ups on him.” She squeezed his arm before letting go when she stopped at the end of the bed.

Without thinking about it The Doctor had slipped around to the side of the bed Isaiah was facing, his eyes still closed, nasal cannula in place to help his rather wheezy breaths. The Doctor couldn’t help but notice, as he took his son’s incredibly fragile and tiny hand that the boy was paler than usual, his body so much smaller. He was sick and this was his illness showing its daemonic face. The Doctor wanted to reach in, to take it away. But River wouldn’t let him and Isaiah would have no idea.   

He rubbed his thumb over the boy’s small hand, The Doctor’s free one pushing Isaiah’s floppy fringe out of his eyes. The boy stirred slowly, his eyelids fluttering. “Dad?” He sighed, green eyes almost completely blue. For the second time that day The Doctor couldn’t breathe and when he flicked a look to his wife standing on the other side of the room he could see that she was doing the same.

“Hey, buddy?” He choked, barely managing to get the expression out.

 _Dad._ His mind was running. What a funny little word it seemed upon first glance. To those who did not have its claim it seemed to be a simple title, but to those who bore it, they held the highest of esteems. And on this day he bore that title again, granted to him by a very small and very sickly child, _his_ child.

When he concentrated on his surroundings again The Doctor noticed that Isaiah was watching him curiously, his face a complete mask and yet not one at all. His face was simple, he didn’t understand the dreamy shocked look on John Smith’s. Isaiah shrugged softly, as best he could his little fingers coming up to brush at the cannula softly still unfamiliar with the medical tube. “I’ve never had a dad before. I didn’t know when you picked that they were so shocked.” His voice was raspy, his eyes dropping with exhaustion but his words were all there, meaning his brain was switched on completely.

Momentarily The Doctor stuttered for words his mind refusing to look at his very still and very silent wife who was still in the room. “Picked them?” He queried softly, intrigued by the world the small child had lived in and his understandings so far.

Isaiah nodded, his mouth open and his first few words not coming out. River jumped to his side, holding a plastic cup of water to his mouth and helping his head as the boy greedily drank from it his dry mouth and aching throat thanking his mother with a lazy smile. “Dad’s get picked. I’d never picked one before but I wanted to pick you.” Isaiah looked up and away from his mother as he hopefully caught John Smith’s eyes, his loving heart displayed on his sleeve. “Or are you already someone’s day? Do you not want to be mine?” It was Isaiah’s turn to suddenly stop, for his face to glaze over as his mind ran away. He hung his head low in preparation of a disappointing answer.

Instantly, The Doctor was sitting on the side of Isaiah’s bed, his hands gripping onto the smaller ones of the little boy. “Of course I do!” Isaiah’s head picked up slowly, his smile alone bringing the colour back to his face. As River’s quietness ebbed at the back of The Doctor’s mind. “I would love to be your dad, Isa, but what makes you think that I should be your dad?”

The little boy tilted his head in deep thought. “A dad is someone who picks you up from school and helps you with your homework. A dad eats the whole pack of Jammie Dodgers but saves you some. A dad plays with you and he loves you. You do that, Raggedy Man.” Isaiah whispered, almost embarrassed with his confession as The Doctor fought to catch his eye. River gasped beside them as The Doctor watched herself lower into a chair against the wall, her legs giving in as she watched her little boy put puzzle pieces together and come up with a conclusion all on his own.

“I do a lot of that stuff, eh don’t I, mate?” He asked, bopping the boys’ nose. “It would be an honour to be your father Isaiah Christopher Song.” Another bop pulled a giggle from the little boy who instantly broke into a coughing fit, his lungs having enough of their exercise. The Doctor’s hands fluttered as he watched the boy cough violently, River handing him a tissue as soon as he started. He didn’t know how to help the child who was even smaller in the hospital bed than ever before. He feared that he would break him beyond repair. But it wasn’t just that, he could feel the tension practically radiating off his wife as she sat on the other side of Isaiah helping him as his whole body shook with his coughs.

The Doctor thought he was the only one to notice it as Isaiah was overcome by his lungs hating him but as soon as the little boy got a breath, his mother’s hand sweeping the hair off his forehead he grabbed her hand softly, keeping it in place before he dryly whispered. “You’re  okay with that, right, mum?” His eyes pooled into hers begging for it to be okay pleading silently that he felt his life depended on it. When she didn’t answer him he asked again, “You’re okay with the Raggedy Man being my daddy, right?” She pulled back sharply, her face blank as she turned slowly to stare at the man on the other side of the boy.

She laughed nervously as she turned back to Isaiah. “What makes you think he’s the Raggedy Man, bubba?” Her hand went to his forehead again pushing back his hair as she worriedly searching his eyes hoping beyond some sane hope that he had slipped into a state of delusion.

“My dad told me.” He beamed at her lazily, his hand reaching out for The Doctor. As he reached for Isaiah’s hand he stopped River glaring at him silently was enough to scare him into submission.

“He asked!” The Doctor raised his hands raising above his head innocently as he slumped further back into his seat.    

Isaiah sighed dramatically, a noise that didn’t commonly come out of his mouth but wasn’t quite uncommon to the ears in the room. “It’s _obvious,_ mum.” He signed again for emphasis, his little hands hitting the bed as he tried to roll his eyes but failed, only managing to go crossed as he got distracted trying to shake his fringe out of his eyes. River raised an eye brow at her little boy, her hands on her hips silently waiting for an explanation. “Bowties.” Isaiah groaned before falling into another coughing fit.

The Doctor couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at that while he raised his hands to play with the before mentioned bowtie. Something River should have been rather attached to, makeshift weddings on top of pyramids and all.

“It’s because they’re _cool_ isn’t it, Isa. That’s how you picked it, right?” The Doctor asked for reassurance as River rolled her eyes. Their conversation wasn’t over, and he was sure it would continue when Isaiah wasn’t in the room but for now there was laughter and bright smiles as he spent time with his family; his wife and his son.

A nurse came in not ten minutes later, checking on the boy and warning both him and his parents that there shouldn’t be any strenuous activity on his lungs. She glared at them, particularly the adults whose faces were still have frozen with laughing smiles. The Doctor sobered immediately, remembering that his son’s life was a grave situation, something to be taken seriously. The boy could still live but hospital visits were for abiding by the rules.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.” River’s voice broke into his thoughts, her hand place warmly on his shoulder. Snapping back to reality The Doctor realized he was tapping his leg almost manically, that familiar itch of time ebbing into the back of his mind, a reminder that he had been in one place for too long and that there were other things _better_ things to do. But there really wasn’t. His son only had so much life left in him, there was nothing better than sitting there in the bland hospital room on a Thursday afternoon, watching childish and simplistic cartoons just because his son wanted to.

The Doctor didn’t realize it then, even though he had the time travelling chance to find out, but he was to spend a lot of days in similar rooms with Isaiah as the years rolled past and perhaps on occasion the room wasn’t for Isa, but his mother instead. Maybe if he knew he would have fought his wife harder or helping their son, on seeking medical advice that could cure his aliment. River was persistent though, this time, this life, this was what she chose. Her baby had to live here, live now, nowhere else. She didn’t want a second of it changed.

“Don’t go.” Isaiah reached for his hand, almost panicked his green eyes wide as he glared at his mother for suggesting the man left before he softened his look for the man he was newly calling his father. “Don’t go yet.” He shook his head, the skin so pale and his eyes so faded against it all. Who was he to turn the sick boy down? To say no to his own son? Never in a thousand moons would The Doctor think about saying no to Isaiah Song, no matter how hard the universe called. It could wait, but the boy couldn’t, his time with his father was limited.

Nodding softly, The Doctor asked the boy to ‘scoot’ allowing space to climb up on the hard white linen-ed bed so the boy could curl around his side and devour his warmth like he had been starved of it.  Curling his arm around the tiny boy The Doctor let his hand settle in Isaiah’s hair as he played with the feather like strands softly lulling the boy to sleep while he subconsciously hummed a Gallifreyan lullaby into his ear.

“I haven’t heard you do that in years.” River whispered, watching on in awe as he baby’s eyes fluttered closed, the resilient child not even thinking about resisting his sleep even though he had done so much of it that day already.

The Doctor smiled lazily, his own eyelids heavy. “He falls asleep as easily as his mother.” He teased, his mind tracing back to a thousand nights where they laid, River curled around him while he played with her hair and sung Gallifreyan lullabies into her ear, it always managed to put her out like a little child and it always amused him to some extent, the rest he admired.

“He called you _dad_.” Her voice shook as she spoke this time, her eyes refusing to meet his as she fiddled with her son’s school bag on the chair beside her.

“He did.” He nodded even though she couldn’t see it. “Do you have a problem with it?” He asked softly, keeping his voice low as to not wake the sleeping boy.

“No.” She still wouldn’t look at him. “Well, I shouldn’t. It’s true, but … I just,” Her hands continued with the treading on his bag. “I’m scared he’s going to get too attached and you’re going to break him. I’m scared of you not hurting him. I’m just scared.” Finally her eyes met his, remarkably dry as her bottom lip wobbled. “I’ve tried so hard to look after him and then you waltz right through my garden and into the front door and I can’t keep you from him. I couldn’t even if I _really_ wanted to. But I don’t, because I want him to know how much like you he is. It’s just, _he’s going to die_.” She whispered softly, so much so that he had to strain in order to hear her. “ _And you’re going to regenerate.”_ The Doctor nodded, that _was_ true.

“We can change it.” She shook her head rapidly. “No.” River stood from her chair, her shoulders squared and her back straight. “I want you to be his dad, okay. I want him to know you’re his dad. I’m just being silly. But, he’s staying _here_.” She got up and crossed to him, leaning over her sleeping child to press a soft kiss to her husband’s cheek.

“River?” He called to stop her as she moved for the door, claiming something about needing food and tea. “Is Isaiah a fixed point? Can he not change?” He asked softly, wondering that maybe his son’s being here had something to do with that. Or even worse, had his son befallen the dangerous fate of a particular Mr. Rory Williams? Surely Angels weren’t here though, were they?

“I don’t know” her voice was soft “and no.” River laughed softly telling him that he had asked his last thought questions aloud.

It wasn’t long before River returned from the cafeteria food and tea in hand. She handed her husband the soothing drink before she sat down in the chair next to his leg that dangled off the hospital bed. “I was thinking,” She started and her husband hummed around his paper cup. “When Isaiah gets older, when he’s _responsible_ enough we tell him about the _real_ aspects of our lives. _We_ tell him about The Girl Who Waited and The Last Centurion, you tell him about your twelve-hundred years and the people you met along the way. You and I, we, tell him all about The Doctor and The Woman Who Married him and then _we_ tell our son about his health, about space travel and how it can help. _We_ put his life in his hands, put him in charge and he can make the decisions. He can stay here if he wants, he can have his regeneration energy back, he can travel to the Lost Moon of Poosh for all I care but we do this when he’s _old_ enough to understand the responsibility. Does that sound alright? It’s his life, who are we the one to decide how he lives out the rest of it.” The Doctor stared at her, his mouth open a little bit.

“River, I ah – I think that’s brilliant.” He grinned, nudging her knee with his own. “I really think its brilliant, Riv.”

“Now we just have to get him there.” She huffed with a soft little smile, her teeth gnawing at her bottom lip.

“We will.” The Doctor grinned. “We’re going to teach him to make all the right decisions, River. Just you watch.”


	6. The Hospital Part II

Thursday Afternoons

The Hospital Part II - Looking Back

She chose the 21st century because she was comfortable and in a sense she was cheating. When River Song found out she was pregnant and knew she couldn’t tell her husband there was only two other people left in her life that she could go to for support. But she had already seen her parents off, left them in New York where they were destined to stay and she wasn’t supposed to look back. Ultimately, yes, she did have to write the Melody Malone book, and she would but she could just as easily mail it to them or leave it on the doorstep than look her lost parents in the eye. But River Song was in trouble and she needed their support. She cheated, the woman was a time traveller, she could do as she pleased as long as she didn’t cross her own path and essentially she had hardly existed in 2011, in Leadworth anyway.

Outside of her sought out comfort from her parents River also knew the time was as safe and secure as the world could have been. Aliens didn’t roam the sidewalk like they had in the 51st century while she was studying at the Luna University, there were no broadly displayed spaceships and they only space travel the world had developed on their own was that of the moon landing in 1969. Nothing here could tempt her little boy to a dangerous, flirtatious life. No matter how much she loved it, how much she wanted to share it with her star struck boy, she just couldn’t, so instead her heart dragged her here and now she couldn’t bring herself to leave. 

She wanted to say that her little boy was a mistake, a bad decision she followed through with, but looking at his little face, watching the energy radiate off him as he stopped to chat with old ladies on the street or as he told her about his make-believe games. She couldn’t have made a better decision if her life depended on it. She had wished that the circumstances were different, though. She wished her boy wasn’t sick, she wished that she didn’t have to hide him from his father in fear of the creatures that came after her in her newborn youth. Maybe, if given the chance to go back and change it all she would have been somewhat wiser about her decisions, she had condemned her son to a life of waiting for his death with a number over his head much smaller than the average persons. But had he not been ill, had he not been plagued with a disease that was destroying him he might have been a different boy. He could have turned out careless and disastrous; he would have been a harsher handful than just innocent, playful energy. He would have been her misspent youth traipsing about the universe, but he wasn’t. Her son was quite surprisingly the opposite. That was another addition to the pros of keeping her son here in Leadworth. He was better off this way and she wasn’t about ready to show him what he was missing out on.

Truth be told, she and Isaiah hadn’t always resided in the 21st century. Isaiah was born at The Sisters of the Infinite Schism; she had no other choice but to have him there or alone with no assistance at all. She trusted them, as much as one who was carrying The Doctor’s child could trust anyone. Isaiah was merely a defenceless babe who was yet to be named when she fled the 51st century hospital. They told her that they couldn’t find any traceable Time Lord DNA that he would be safe if ever he needed medical attention and that was all she needed to know.

But after purchasing a small house in Leadworth, making sure she had enough money and a job to turn to in a couple of months Isaiah’s medical problems started to rear its ugly head. It was when she checked on her sleeping babe, as she did almost obsessively several times during the night that she found her child on the cusp of losing his breath all together. Without thinking she scooped her tiny child into her arms and held him protectively. She tried at first, tried getting him to breathe on his own, she had quickly realized that although it was making a difference it wasn’t enough. She held her breath as she left the house and took off down the street, her baby in her arms. The fresh snowfall on the pavement burnt her feet with the chill as she ran for her parents, for her father.

Amy had held her back, while the devastated River Song watched doctors fuss about her boy. Her face was blotched with tears as she watched him, so small and so innocently at their disposal. He didn’t fuss as he always did, protesting to losing his clothes or being messed with when he was trying to sleep. He was barely a year old and he squawked at her continuously, not in complaint of anything, just baby chatter but even now he was quiet. Deathly so.

It felt as though she held her breath the whole night while people surrounded her tiny son. Eventually Amy managed to drag her down to the cafeteria, in an attempt to elsewise occupy her troubled daughter’s mind. It was startling for both Amelia and Rory Pond to see their daughter in such a state, never had they seen her so distraught as they had when she pounded on their door at an ungodly hour.

Returning to the children’s ward, and Isaiah’s previously assigned room Amy stopped her daughter, a finger to her lips as she used her free hand to point though the cracked open door. Rory, in his scrubs pants and pyjama t-shirt stood side on to the door, enough not to notice his wife and daughters arrival. Isaiah was in his arms, wrapped securely in the blanket River had ripped from his bed when she picked him up in a frantic haste. The boy was connected to a series of machines; one to watch his heart and the other to keep him breathing. His grandfather held him close, rocking the boy as he hummed a small, childish song.

“How’s he doing?” River had asked, causing her father to jump as he turned slowly to look at her, the song on his lips had come to an end. She could breathe again when her father told her that Isaiah would be fine. Doctors still had to come back with some of their findings and a few test results, but he was breathing and that was the important part.

“How are you?” Rory asked with a shaking voice as he turned from the little boy’s face to that of his daughter’s. River shook her head dismissively she didn’t want to answer the question. She wanted to put the pain and heartache behind her but Rory pushed as he continued to rock his grandchild. She lied through her teeth as she watched her father fondly. Rory and Amy had their fair share of time with Isaiah since he was a newborn but she never managed to grow tired of watching them with him. They never had this time with her, not for long anyway and in a sense, she felt that letting them see him, spend a couple of years with him before they were trapped in New York, that this was her paying them back, trying to make up for lost time that could never be regained.

Amy hovered behind her husband, her hand on Isaiah’s head as she rested her chin on Rory’s shoulder. River just watched, even though her whole being ached to hold her son, to check for herself that he was fine but she realized her parents needed this time too and they were so cosy in their quiet little world that she didn’t dare to break the silence. So instead she watched quietly as the broken calm around the little boy fell back into place, his beating heart and soft breathing lulling them all back into comfortable security.

River jumped up when Amy broke away from Rory, leaving a kiss on his cheek as she turned back to their silent daughter. “Rory starts his shift in an hour, I was going to go home, get a change of clothes, shower, proper tea. I know you don’t want to leave, but do you need anything?” River shook her head with a soft smile as she reached for her tiny son, he was only six months old and yet he was still so small. Rory surrendered the child easily, recognizing the look of need on his daughter’s face. He just wished that he could fix it for her, make the hurt go away but it was a medical problem and he _was_ trying his best to help out despite the ‘no treating family’ rule.

Amy left without properly announcing it, the silent of the room was thick enough to recognize her departure. Rory helped his daughter carefully lower herself into a chair, Isaiah in her arms and the chords for the medical equipment making fast and un-thought-out movements hard. She smiled thankfully when he pulled back, the child settled and her body as relaxed as it could be. “I’m sorry.” She whispered softly, her finger against her son’s smooth cheek. “You have a shift soon and I interrupted your sleep, I shouldn’t  –“ Rory stopped her, an amused grin on his face. “What?”

“Don’t apologize, River. You needed help, isn’t that what Amy and I are here for? Don’t apologize for needing us, ever, it’s okay. You’re our daughter, he’s our grandson. We’d do anything for you, Melody.” River nodded slowly, accepting his words as he lent down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Are you sure you don’t want us to find him?” He asked softly, settling into the seat beside her as his daughter shook her head manically muttering that her husband certainly couldn’t know, not now.

“He’ll want to make him better, make everything right. I can’t, I can’t go through that, dad. Does that make me a bad person?” Rory shook his head, his fingers playing with Isaiah’s little toes leaving the boy to kick at his hand in his sleep.

“Not at all. You’re protecting your family River, you’ll tell him one day, I know you will. Even you can’t keep a spoiler this big.” He teased playfully, flashing her a smile as the infant grunted in his sleep and River was forced to glare at her father in a silent warning on behalf of the little boy. Rory smiled wider, forcing back a laugh as he watched his daughter fondly.

He never _really_ got to hold his infant daughter and the next time he had seen her chronologically she had been River Song. There was only little comfort in knowing that his daughter had become Mels Zucker in her youth and had spent most of her misguided, rebellious years being chased around, bailed out and scolded by her parents. She had been the reason he and Amy finally got together. Without their daughter, they would not have had the chance to have their daughter. All of that aside, he never got to raise her never got to take her to ballet or help her with her math homework. Rory Pond never got the chance to carry his little daughter on his shoulders as she directed them through the busy Zoo.

Seeing her now, mothering her own child, but still in desperate need for her parent’s help, it was somewhat odd and completely confronting. He shouldn’t have been doing this, he should be cradling his child, only as old as Isaiah. The hardest thing about it all, was her turning up on their doorstep only hours after they had been escorted home from Demon’s Run, the baby in her arms so young that she hadn’t even thought of a name.

He remembered rushing her into the house, rain falling heavily on the tried woman before him. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Amy was upstairs, roaming around for a clean pair of pyjama’s, half distraught over her ordeal. He had a slight thought about keeping his wife upstairs and his daughter down, when the newborn wrapped in white blankets let out a loud squawk. River’s eyes had flown to his, her face panicked, she didn’t know what to do and before he could move forward to help her settle the baby Amy was calling out, her feet heavy on the stairs.

‘He found her? He really found her?!” But her speech was cut short when she reached her husband’s side. Finding the living room void of a brilliant blue box or her Raggedy Man, Amy’s shoulders slumped and the colour drained from her face. “River?!” She gasped, catching sight of a rain soaked River Song sitting on her lounge, practically frozen with fright. She lunged for her daughter, after only learning she was her daughter an hour before hand just after the infant form had been ripped from her arms. “Riv-“ She stopped before she reached her as the baby squawked again.

Before Amy could ask if the child in her arms was in fact herself, River shook her head. “He’s my son.” She whispered quietly on a frightened whimper. The realization hadn’t completely hit. River had only given birth to him a couple of hours ago and had since used her Vortex Manipulator to carry both herself and her newborn son from their shared hospital room to the front door of her parent’s house on the night that they lost their daughter. Amy’s face didn’t quite settle on one emotion, instead she watched her daughter slowly as the emotion crossed River’s face the internal battle she had been fighting since she found out she was pregnant still playing on in her mind. “I don’t know what to do. I – I can’t tell him, it’ll put the baby in danger. I can’t, I can’t tell him.” Her mouth moved, the words coming out as her mind span.   Amy slipped on the couch beside her daughter, her own mind shell shocked as Rory watched them both, unsure as to what he could do while his daughter cried and the baby in her arms continued to protest about whatever was making his young life so troublesome.

Rory stepped forward, a silent question towards River, asking if he could take the tiny infant from her arms. She stared at him and he couldn’t help but jump back, his daughter was a fierce lioness trying to protect her cub and potentially she saw him as a threat. Immediately her gaze softened as she realized no harm would come to her son in the sanctity of her parent’s care. She surrendered the small child into Rory’s waiting arms, who promptly took him and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving his wife and daughter to have a few well needed moments together.

The two women found him when they needed him, as always. He had moved from the kitchen to his and Amy’s bedroom in order to lay the now sleeping child down and it was there that the women found him singing the same Fleetwood Mac song he would always get caught singing to his grandson.

Coming back to his senses in the soft light of Isaiah’s hospital room, Rory jumped up from his seat pressed a kiss to his daughter’s hair and then another one to Isaiah’s darkening little mop. “If you need anything, River, _anything_ get someone to page me, okay?” She nodded in the affirmative. Leaving the room, Rory was back promptly two seconds later, his head ducked around the corner. “Do you need any help getting him into the crib?” He asked, knowing how she needed help just to sit down.

Again, River shook her head. “I’m fine to just hold him.” Her face flickered with a smile. “Thank you, dad.” She whispered and he tilted his head in a soft bow before disappearing back down the hall.

Hospital visits with Isaiah always reminded her of these times. They reminded her of the time she cried in front of her parents, when she was at her weakest due to Isa’s health, they reminded her of the quiet moments she got with her father and the fierce support she got from her mother. The Doctor’s name had been cursed, on behalf of Amy quite a number of times in these halls and her son prevailed every single one of his ailments, even managed to smile through a few check-ups when she dragged him through the doors.

He was older now, Amy and Rory no longer around. No one tapped on her shoulder with a paper cup filled with warm tea just the way she liked it. Instead she sat, her chin perched against her son’s hospital bed while she watched him sleep throughout the night, his lungs wheezing and the machine’s beeping rhythmically. She didn’t get to spend this time with her parents, who were always a welcome distraction, but at least she still got this time with her son and they got to have time with him while it lasted. Sometimes she found herself wishing they were there, or even on the odd occasion thinking that they actually were; a flash of red hair moving around a corner a page for ‘Williams’ over the intercom. Some days she just made it all up because she _needed_ them there.

This time she wasn’t completely alone as a warm hand squeezed her shoulder and a warm paper cup full of tea was slipped into her hand. She tilted her head softly to thank him as she received a small delicate kiss on her lips before she heard him pull up a chair by Isaiah’s bed. The Doctor wouldn’t always be there, and there would be the chance where Isaiah would be sicker than this but for now, once again, she wasn’t alone in that cold hospital room watching as her son’s chest sputtered for a breath. 


	7. The Sitter

Thursday Afternoons

The Tenth Week – The Sitter

He had left with Isaiah hours ago only to return to a flustered River who swung open the door open in nothing by a white silk dressing gown. He sputtered, watching her with confusion as Isaiah squeezed past them both and slipped back into his usual after school routine.

She was already speaking before he even thought to listen which cost him the first half of her statement. “…It’ll only be a few hours. I swear.” She pleaded, her back to him now as she moved for the stairs. He followed her without second thought, Isaiah’s school bag still slung over his shoulder. “I promised the head of the board weeks ago and Julie just cancelled on me.” Walking into her bedroom she threw the phone in her hand on the bed in vexation.

The Doctor waited patiently as she continued to ramble, the stress causing her hands to fly as she explained that her usual sitter came down with the flu the week of a big test and couldn’t sacrifice the time. He smiled lazily, his shoulder leaning against the doorframe as he watched her pace. He knew what she was asking and why she was working herself up into such a state befuddled the man. Of course he would say yes, there was no reason as to why he shouldn’t. But none the less, he found her anxious talk and fumbling hands rather adorable. So he let her continue.

She stopped, slipping her body onto the ottoman at the end of her bed while she looked at him the question, for the second time poised at her lips. “Sure,” He answered before she could actually ask if he would sit with their son while she attended a dinner for the University. “You know, I’m here for anything either of you need.” She nodded slowly and he half expected her to make a side comment about how he was only around once a week but instead The Doctor’s wife smiled brilliantly before she leaped off the ottoman and kissed him with thankful enthusiasm.

The Doctor found a place, sitting on the end of her bed as he watched her flutter about the room in a rush to get ready. With every circuit through her bedroom and the en suite she added something new; her hair was pulled up neatly, make-up done expertly, a little black dress was awned and perfume filled his nostrils as it took its place against her skin while her shoes were placed, waiting, by the door. He watched quietly as River half hummed half mumbled to herself as she rummaged around her vanity in search of something that seemed unnecessary to the man who had been watching her get ready.

She giggled to herself causing the man to drag his eyes up to hers in the mirror. “You stare at me like you follow Isa around, were you ever a dog, Sweetie?” She teased with a playful smile and wink.

He could have taken her comment in a number of ways, but he knew better than to think that of his wife. She was simply teasing in a loving manner and truth be told he did rather enjoy the loving attention. “It’s the Song charm.” He teased back. “That and well, some days I can’t quite believe that you’re both _mine_.”

“Get used to it big guy.” She teased back with a smile her eyes refusing to leave his in the vanity as her head titled and she tried blindly to slip a pair of earrings into her ears. She continued to talk, asking about Isaiah and what he was doing on the floor below them checking that he had actually started his homework and not moved for cartoons. When he replied in the positive towards homework River’s face shifted completely. A predatory and wicked smile slipped into place as she turned and stalked towards her husband. The brash and flirty River Song he fell in love with was coming back out of her shell with each passing week.

The Doctor had been gaping at her since he brought Isaiah home and finally it had driven her insane. Reaching the man, who had slipped down onto the ottoman she caught his mouth with her own, her teeth sinking tantalizingly into his bottom lip as The Doctor himself let out a soft growl.

“Mum!” Isaiah’s voice called from the floor below them as his feet sounded on the stairs. Groaning River pulled back from her husband, her eyes rolling as she gnawed at her lip in thought. Closing her eyes, she counted softly. When painted red lips mouthed the fifth number Isa burst through the door. “Mum, look!” The boy jumped around the room, his excitement radiating through his movements. Isaiah came to a stop, beside his mother’s ottoman, the book tossed onto the piece of furniture as the boy fought to regulate his breathing. “The Last Centurion, mum.” He had to stop again, almost panting with the struggle, excitement mixing with exhaustion. “He’s so cool!” The Doctor’s face lit up as the boy continued to talk; The Last Centurion, but he had reset the universe. Rory was simple old Rory, not a plastic reincarnation of a Roman soldier. How could that story continue to exist when the Pandorica was no more?

River clicked her tongue, a small smile playing across her face as she watched her son’s amusement and her husbands puzzled face. “That’s not your homework, Isa.” She pointed to the book, its cover already worn with the tender love the book had been granted in the hands of grateful owners. It had been a gift, she explained to The Doctor only, from a man who thought himself more than two-thousand-years-old. Isaiah giggled at his mother’s words, remembering the stories but not the man himself, exactly. He climbed up next to The Doctor, the book back in his hands as he leant into the older man heavily.

“It’s like my homework.” The child tried sheepishly knowing already that he wasn’t going to get away with it. Finding comfort in The Doctor’s lap a cheeky smile slipped across his face as his mother raised an eyebrow. “You look really pretty, Mama. Doesn’t she look pretty, Dad?!” Isaiah jumped in his father’s lap with an over exaggerated excitement. The Doctor watched as River flinched, she still wasn’t okay with the title Isaiah had gallantly bestowed him with and even though he recognized her discomfort he couldn’t help the breathless ‘gorgeous’ that slipped out of his mouth.

River’s cheeks flushed with the flattery that was suddenly surrounding her. She had grown used to getting it from her small child who flowered her in compliments but the man, her husband, that was an affection she had drifted from and it certainly wasn’t the typical type of affection anyway. Somehow, being here with The Doctor, having him visit every week it was changing him or he was just simply changing himself but either way the man was more human, which to his wife only made him more alien.

Smiling softly, she twirled for both of her boys as she giggled to herself and they applauded. When Isaiah, yet again began to compliment her she scooped him up in a tight hug before putting him down and shooing both himself and his father out of the room.

Pouting at the now closed door, both father and son stood with their shoulders slumped acting like kicked puppies whom of which had been left out in the rain. The ringing of the doorbell distracted them both and within a second The Doctor had Isaiah under his arm as he trotted down the stairs and pulled the door open wide.

The Doctor stopped, startled for a moment as he stared at the man on the other side of the door. A clean shaven, dark haired collected piece of human male stood in front of what could only be properly described as the Song boys, a charming smile in place as he tried to look around them both into the brightly lit house. “Is River home?” He asked, charming smile almost sickly. The Doctor couldn’t hold back a pang of jealousy and nor could he control the urge to shut the front door in the man’s face, which was exactly what he did with Isaiah still on his hip.

Isaiah giggled as the door clicked into place, leaving the charming looking man in the quick coming darkness that was infiltrating Leadworth bidding goodnight to its children and willing the adults to come out and play.

Isaiah held up his hand with a giggle promptly encouraging the man who was holding him to give him a high-five. The Doctor chuckled but the mirth died quickly on his lips at the sound of River’s heels on the stairs. “Was that George?” She asked, the skirt of her dress bunched up in her hands as she ran down the stairs and playfully thwacked her husband on the arm.  “Seriously, you’re more childish than him.” She smiled at her son who had hidden his face shyly in his father’s neck as River squeezed herself between them and the door. “Shoo.” She pushed The Doctor away, his face still resembling the wounded puppy she had kicked out of her room as Isaiah giggled at his mother’s antics. Putting the boy on the ground The Doctor watched as Isaiah ran and hid around the doorway leading to the open left side of the house. He silently ushered The Doctor over as his mother pulled the door open.

Together they watched from around the corner as River apologized on their behalf for the rude behaviour bestowed upon a guest. The charming man, whose name had been revealed as George only smiled thicker at the beautifully dressed woman in front of him. The Doctor’s frame tensed as he watched, jealously burning a fast track through his veins it wasn’t until Isaiah put his little hand on his father’s shoulder that The Doctor realized he had his fists clenched tightly.

“Who is he?” The man asked softly his hand on River’s arm as he lent in a little too close for The Doctor’s comfort. He wanted to ask the man’s question and aim it at the little boy but The Doctor felt it unfair on the child. He couldn’t ask if he wanted to anyway, Isaiah had jumped out from the doorway a particular title on his lips but his mother beat the boy to the punch, uttering that the awfully rude man who’d shut the door in his face was in fact the ‘sitter’. With those words The Doctor slinked away from the door, pulling Isaiah with him as he led the boy to the kitchen intent on figuring out what to the feed the child above anything else.

River’s hells followed them minutes later, a small smile on her face as she kissed Isaiah on the cheek and warned him to behave. “We’ll be back around eleven, there’s salad in the fridge. Isa can have _one_ serve of ice-cream after dinner and that’s if he eats _all_ of it. If he’s still hungry after that he can have fruit.” Isaiah rolled his eyes as River stammered on pointing out the emergency numbers on the fridge before entailing what _exactly_ was an emergency. She was about to duck out the door again unfazed that The Doctor had pulled back from her interactions when Isaiah called out.

“Mum, you need to say sorry.” She stopped, her brow knitted as she asked him whatever for. “You hurt John’s feelings. He’s not my sitter, he’s my daddy!”

“Isa,” The Doctor started, the child’s name a mild groan. “your mother has a date to get to and just because you – well she has to go, kiddo.”

River shook her head with a soft laugh. “It’s not a date, George works in the archaeology department, he had to drive past on his way to the dinner and offered me a lift, that’s all.” She stepped back into the room, warm smile on her face as she contemplated leaving the man who was waiting in the car in order to console the one who was sitting in the kitchen with her son. Shaking her head she smiled and threw them both a wink. “He has to be in bed by eight, no later than nine.” She warned with a smile before blowing her son a kiss and slipping out of the door.

“So …” The Doctor turned to the little boy as he twiddled with his thumbs. “I know mum put out food but, fish fingers and custard?”  

Instantly Isaiah’s face scrunched up. “Fish fingers” he started, his eye brows knitting together before he continued. “and custard?” His face was a beautifully contorted mess. The boy stuck his tongue out promptly pretending to gag as his whole body repelled the idea. 

“I’ll have you know Amelia Pond loved it!” He answered back around a twirl as he moved to search River’s fridge.

“Granny?” Isaiah asked, his head tilted with confusion. “You knew my granny?” The Doctor nodded with a large smile and a soft utterance of confirmation while he added in that he in fact knew Rory Williams too. “They don’t live here anymore. They went away and they didn’t even say goodbye, can you believe that?! Mum said we can’t visit them anymore and we can’t call them and that makes me sad but it is okay, I guess.” He shrugged.

“Oh, Isaiah.” The Doctor whooped. “This is no shrugging matter, leaving without a goodbye how horrid of them!” He exclaimed manically ignoring the fact that he was the one who swept them away and in turn got his friends, his _in-laws_ stuck in a placed they really hadn’t desired to be. He held up the little already open box of fish fingers and unceremoniously tipped its contents onto the tray Isaiah was patiently holding.

The boy shook his head as the now full tray was taken from him. He moved to protest against his father’s words but instead was stopped. “Do you remember them?” The Doctor asked quietly as he moved about River’s kitchen, a place he had rather enjoyed in her home.

He never cooked much, not in the TARDIS anyway the old girl never liked him smoking out the place and well, Amelia Pond had cooked for him since the day they first met. Stores of food were hidden away in his travelling home waiting to be found if he ever so deemed said place as great enough to mope in. There was always food. None he ever prepared himself. Of course, he had made River fish fingers and custard once, that time she found him after Manhattan, she was pregnant then, he realized and despised the food he put tenderly before her. His face paled suddenly, thinking that perhaps if she had turned down his food in disgust then her child, _their_ child, would do the exact same thing. He held onto hope though. He would convince the boy, one bite was all it took. Besides, Isaiah was his child after all he should be immune to his father’s odd tastes, but then again, twelve-thousand-years of time and space one had to shake up the tastebuds every now and then. 

Slipping from the counter Isaiah hit the titled floor his bare feet causing soft sounds on the tiles as he ran for the display cabinet at the other end of the room. “We have pictures!” He exclaimed, a small skip in his step as he reached the cabinet and pulled the heavy bottom drawer open with a heavy huff. In his little boy way Isaiah pulled a box out of the draw and pushed it across the floor his hands on the box as he stuck his bum up in the air and pushed with all his might.

Patiently The Doctor watched as the boy slowly reached him. “These are mine.” Isaiah stood as tall as his small height allowed as he tapped the box with his foot and looked up at his father proudly. “Mum puts pictures in here for me to look at so I don’t ruin the others. Granny and Granddad are in here.” He crouched again as he took the lid off the blue box. The pictures inside were unorganised and The Doctor assumed it was because of the young boy but Isaiah knew exactly what he was doing because he knew every inch of the contents.

Isaiah hurrahed when he found the picture he was looking for, holding it above his head with one hand he continued to look for another with free hand. Carefully The Doctor took the photograph from Isaiah admiring it under the soft kitchen light. It was a picture of Rory holding an incredibly tiny Isaiah who could have only been the length of the man’s forearm. He ran his fingers over the picture tracing the small creases in Isaiah’s new born skin and the length of Rory’s face. It had been so long since he had seen the companions that became his family.

Flipping the picture over, hoping for some story behind the image he found, written neatly in River’s dainty scroll ‘ _‘Granddad’ Rory naming Baby Blue – six weeks._ ’ Chuckling softly, The Doctor smiled as he turned the picture over to study it again.

Flopping more pictures onto the counter, Isaiah tried his best to see the picture in his father’s hands. “I was a small baby.” He muttered, more interested in the man’s face now then the picture. There was something hidden from Isaiah in John Smith’s face as he stared at the picture a fond little smile tickling the corners of his mouth. The Doctor hummed, agreeing with the little boy. For six weeks old, he was indeed still rather small. “It’s ‘cause I have bad lungs. I can’t grow proper.” He huffed as he pulled himself up onto the counter, his little feet kicking at his mother’s cupboards. “I’m the smallest one in my class. All the girls are bigger than me!” With another huff, this one in displeasure Isaiah dramatically crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’ll get bigger than them.” The Doctor told him with a comforting smile.

Isaiah bit his bottom lip. “I don’t believe you.”

Putting the photo down The Doctor leant into the little boy, his eyes squinted as he scrutinized the child. “Just you wait, Isa Song. You’ll get taller than those _girls_.” He bopped his son on the nose knowing that the child was still yet to hit a growth spurt that would eventually, hopefully, make him taller than the girls in his class. Isaiah shrugged, not willing to commit himself to the reassurance.

The sound of the buzzing timer pulled The Doctor away from the little boy. With his back to Isaiah the young child came to a sudden thought. “We don’t have any pictures for my box.” He almost shrieked, his body jolting so much so that he nearly slipped off the counter.

“You have lots of pictures.”

“No!” The boy insisted. “ _We_ don’t have any pictures, _together_ , for my box.” Pushing himself off the counter in dire need for his small feet to be on the floor Isaiah started moving in circles, his little mind panicked.

Dropping the hot tray to the stove top in order to tend to the panicked child The Doctor was quick to grab Isaiah and scoop him up off the floor. “Calm down,” He soothed as he stood the boy on the counter, his hands on his arms squeezing gently. “It’s okay, Isa. We can take pictures any time, maybe when your mum gets home then she can do it, okay?” The boy’s eyes were wide, deep greens swimming in nearly there tears.  

The boy shook his head. “But I’ve known you forever now and we don’t have pictures from the start, I always have pictures from the start.” Having calmed somewhat The Doctor allowed the boy to drop down from the counter in order to shift through his box of photo’s again. “See, first cuddles with granddad and granny, and great granddad and my first day of school and riding a bike and my first Christmas…!” The boy continued to rattle on as he found picture after picture of his first everything.   

“We can’t worry about it now, Isa.” He warned the young boy a promise already forming in his head to go back to their first week, even their second and make sure that a picture was taken. “Grubs up.” He smiled, clapping the boy on the shoulder as he clambered to get everything back into the box before it could get ruined, or forgotten about.

“I’m gonna eat mum’s salad if that’s alright.” He mumbled softly knowing that there was food pre-prepared for them and that John Smith’s idea of dinner didn’t at all sound appetising to his five-year-old stomach.

“Eat whatever else you like, but I _promise_ you’ll love this.” Isaiah scrunched his face up as he shook his head vigorously his little body almost being swallowed whole while he dug through the fridge. Mocking shock horror, The Doctor caught the boy with one hand while he held onto the bowl encasing both the fish fingers and the custard in the other. Isaiah himself gripped onto his mother’s salad bowl as he was carried into the living room against his will.

“Ready?” The Doctor asked, a slender fish finger covered in vanilla custard poised at his mouth, Isaiah doing exactly the same but looking more disgusted than pleased. The boy shook his head, his mouth closed tightly in case his had was possessed to push the odd concoction into his mouth. “C’mon.” The Doctor moaned. “If you eat it you can have second helpings of desert.”

Isaiah eyed off what he could only describe as the fish desert in front of him. With a promise of second helpings of ice-cream he couldn’t really see the disadvantage in eating the thing. John Smith did say one, not all of them. Squeezing his eyes shut he thrust the stick of processed fish covered in vanilla custard into his mouth whole and chewed quickly. He slowed only a little as the sweet taste erupted over his tongue, the custard drowning out most of the fish enough for him to not actually realize that’s what he was eating and that in fact, it was quite good.

Slowly, Isaiah cracked his eyes open as he swallowed the food in his mouth. The Doctor sat opposite him, starting with a proud grin towards the fact that the boy hadn’t gotten up and run to the bathroom to spit it all out.

Without words, Isaiah reached for another and not so graciously traced it through the custard before eating it slower than the first. The Doctor stared, shocked. He had assumed the boy would like it, well he rather thought he would force him into liking it. But by the way Isaiah was reacting he really thought he was going to hate the odd mixture of food The Doctor had combined years ago with a young Amelia Pond before she became The Girl Who Waited.

He laughed loudly as Isaiah finished the second fish finger and move for another one happily enjoying the food as he every so often gazed at the television in aversion to his father’s smug laughing eyes.

[…]

River slipped through the front door quietly her shoes and phone in her hand as she opened the front door just enough to squeeze through it. Tip toeing on the cool wood floorboards she lowered her shoes to the floor by the shoe rack promising herself to put them away properly at a lighter time. The whole house was dark, a soft light from the kitchen seeped under the ajar door. On her right, both sliding doors that led to the living room were _just_ closed, blue light from the television set squeezing through the crack like the way she had let herself in. Sneaking closer she pushed one of the doors open slowly, she stepped into the room her sore bare feet singing at the touch of soft carpet. 

Ducking around the couch River Song was greeted with the sight of her husband and son lying on the couch, their faces relaxed in sleep. The Doctor was lying on his back, his left arm dangling over the side, his fingers brushing the carpet while his right arm was tucked around Isaiah’s little body that was fast asleep on his chest. Her chest tightened at the sight of them, her heart crushed at the thought that she had to move them. As much as she would have liked to leave them there she knew one would have the urge to roll in their sleep and it would end with one or both of them on the floor. She couldn’t have that, not at all for her boys. They had beds to sleep in, far better pieces of furniture than a couch.

Phone still in hand River snapped a picture of them lying like that. As she moved closer River was fairly certain that Isaiah had dribbled in his sleep, a small wet patch lasted as the reminder on her husband’s shirt. Carefully she leant forward, her hand tucking under the boys arm and the other one around his knees as she detached him as carefully as she could from his father’s chest. The Doctor growled in his sleep, his arm shifting, reaching out for the warmth and the child she had taken from his body. Luckily she hadn’t startled him enough to wake the man from his seemingly deep slumber.

She carried Isaiah up the stairs and into his bedroom all the while reminding herself that he was probably getting too big to be carried as her joints began to protest. He was still so very small though and that was the reason why she continued to carry him, or at least the choice of argument her mind fought back with. River tucked him in just the way he liked and kissed him goodnight before she descended the stairs in order to move her next boy, this one would have to wake up in order to get upstairs.

He hadn’t moved since she moved Isaiah off him, his whole body slack against the cushions and for a moment she couldn’t help but admire the vulnerability she could see in his sleep. Leaning down she gently brushed her fingers over his face her voice soft as she called to him in his sleep. The Doctor moved softly, his hand wrapping around her hand at his cheek while his other arm tucked around her waist. With a soft tug he managed to pull her on top of him with a breathless gasp.

The Doctor sighed into the quiet of the room, the television now off as he nuzzled at her neck taking his time to breathe her in. “How do you do that?” He hummed, refusing to let her go as she shifted to get comfortable on top of him.

“What?” River asked quietly as she pulled her head back, her nose inches from his.

The Doctor hummed as he inhaled and then exhaled deeply. “You always smell like strawberries, no matter what. It’s heavenly, River. I can’t smell a strawberry and not think about you. When it rains you smell like strawberries and vanilla, you taste like a mixture of strawberries and apples and sometimes, if I think about it really hard I can smell watermelon too.”

“Are you asking if I’m a fruit?” She asked, securitizing him playfully.

“Depends on how you look at it.” He mused, teasing her back as he lent up to catch her lips briefly. “How was your night?” He asked, watching her eyes shine in the darkness.

River hummed. “Bland. I think you scared George off.”

“Good.” Was his answer.

“And yours?”

The Doctor gleamed and she didn’t need the lights on to know it. “Fish fingers and custard.” He mused as he detailed Isaiah’s reaction and practically felt her squirm in disgust on top of him. “You don’t have a first picture with him.” His voice lowered to something that was barely there as his mind remembered the boy’s frantic chatter about first photos.

Resting her chin on her clasped hands that lay on his chest she looked at him, eyebrows knitted. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t have a picture with him from the first time you held him. He has all these pictures of Amy and Rory, of Brian and the older Pond’s, but there wasn’t one of _you_ with your newborn son. He was prattling about needing a first picture with me, he was rather upset actually that we hadn’t gotten one and I realized as he rummaged through the box that not once did he show me a picture with you in it when he was younger than a week old.” River shifted uncomfortably as she attempted to climb off him but The Doctor wouldn’t let her. “Why not?”

“It’s not as though there was anyone there to take the picture.” She shrugged as he finally let her go, optioning to sit through this conversation rather than lay. “But, um,” Her voice softened to the point that he had to strain. “I do have one, just the one. It’s uh, it’s in my diary. I can get it if you like?” She asked quietly still, almost afraid.

He shook his head in the dark, unaware that she couldn’t really make the movement out. “No, River what’s yours is yours. I don’t want to impose on that.”

In the dark her hand was on his shoulder before it trailed down his arm and grabbed hold of his hand. “I want to share it with you.” She whispered as she pulled him up from the couch and led him upstairs.

They talked that night of the night Isaiah was born, of the decision she made and her almost not making it to the 51st century hospital. The Doctor listened carefully to every detail she enclosed as he watched the memories flash across her face he didn’t try to bud in or jump up to move. He sat stock still as he listened about the stormy night their child was born, about how once he was placed in her arms for the first time, and one of the nurses took a picture, she had never been in love so hard so quickly and yet so terribly frightened.

She told him how she couldn’t pick a name, that nothing seemed worthy to his incredibly small form and to the fact that he was six weeks old when she abandoned the pet name ‘ _Baby Blue_ ’ at her father’s suggestion of Isaiah. 

They fell asleep around her own little box of new born Isaiah mementoes and neither woke until the first crack of sunlight and the sound of Isaiah’s little feet sticking to the floorboards. River moved fast enough to close the box and slip it under her bed before the boy reached her side. Easily enough she picked him up and placed him in between them. Replacing the mementoes with the child she cuddled his still sleepy warmth.

“Mama?” He whispered into the daybreak of her soft white and power blue bedroom. She hummed back in response as she boy shifted closer towards her.

“Yes, Baby Blue.” She replied when he didn’t grant her with a response. The pet name fell off her lips like the casual ‘Sweetie’ or ‘Darling’ even Isaiah’s usual ‘bubba’.

The boy shifted back slightly, moving closer to the man sleeping on his back, than the woman who was now lying on her side. “Daddy has two heartbeats.” He whispered, his thumb playing with his bottom lip, his daring thumb sucking habit begging to be brought back.

River stilled, her heart rate quickened, of course he had known that. He had been sleeping on The Doctor’s chest after all, but she didn’t know how to answer the question. When Isaiah opened his mouth again, it turned out that she really didn’t have too. “Is it ‘cause he loves us so much that he got two hearts to love us both?” He asked innocently and who was she to do nothing but nod simply at her son’s innocent question. He was only five, she could play it off but River realized that there was going to come a day where both she and her husband were going to have to explain to the young boy about things such as space and Gallifrey.

But for now, that day was far off. Now, she was enjoying a simple morning as her husband woke slowly and tickled their son in greeting causing the child’s angelic laughter to erupt like the morning sun slipping through her curtains in a warm and welcome greeting.

Soon she would have to get out of bed, take her son to school and head off to work herself. The Doctor would leave and again they wouldn’t see him for another week. Inching them closer and closer, if only slowly to the day that Isaiah had to find out the truth. But for now, it was just one Thursday afternoon at a time, whilst the little boy had no cares and his mother didn’t have to explain his worries. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise the next chapter will be up timely next Thursday, I have a busy week happening but I will try my best. :)   
> A


	8. The Realisation That Being Late Was Never An Option

Thursday Afternoons

The Realisation that Being Late Was Never an Option

He never missed a Thursday. Never in close to a year, the TARDIS wouldn’t allow it. She understood as much as he did that being there for Isaiah during his assigned time meant more than the whole universe to the young child.

But something went wrong.

The TARDIS wasn’t in the right mind frame, he needed saving yet again and this time it had run past schedule. The minute the programmed timer on his wrist went off in the middle of a wrangle with a rather unpersuasive piece of alien civilisation, he knew he was in big trouble. Fleeing from the planet he tried his best to make it to River and Isaiah for his afternoon. But by the time the TARDIS finally granted him control it was far too late in the evening and the old girl, his sexy, wouldn’t let him go back to make it right. He had to face the consequence and to be perfectly honest he feared the reaction.

So the mad man waited. And then he waited a little bit more, the watch on his wrist telling him that both Isaiah and River would be well into their Friday before he managed to step out of the TARDIS and place his feet on the lush lawn of Leadworth University’s grounds. He almost stepped back into his TARDIS before the old girl shut the doors behind him with a disgruntled huff.

He had to speak with River first. He couldn’t just go straight to Isaiah and tell him an extravagant story, the boy would most likely forgive him straight away and as much as he wanted that. It wasn’t the way the world worked. He would have to beg on his hands and knees with the wife first before he could even think about touching the child.  Scuffing his boot against the ground The Doctor slipped his hands into his pockets with a small moan of protest.

It didn’t take him long to wander the university grounds before he found the Archaeology department and better yet, River Song. He hadn’t been walking through the building for long when he heard her voice echoing through the hall. He walked slower at the noise, the words she was saying eluding to the fact that she was no doubt teaching at that moment. He thought of waiting her out, loitering in the halls or finding her office until she finished but as he found the classroom she was in The Doctor decided to slip in and sneak into a seat. He hadn’t had the chance to observe her doing what she did. Sure, he had been on a few digs with her but he had never seen her teach and on some days she spoke so fondly of it.

He paused at the door a moment before sucking in a deep breath and slipping through the open door. He thought that he could make it in unnoticed but the man had been wrong. River stuttered mid-sentence, her eyes catching his body as he slid into a chair in the second row. Dazed if only moment River collected herself quickly before addressing the class in front of her. “The chapter continues on page three-eleven. Please take a moment to read through it. I’ll be back in a second.” He knew instantly that she was taking a break to speak to him so The Doctor jumped out of his chair and followed her almost reluctantly into the hall.

As he stepped into the hallway and she closed the door behind her, blocking their conversation from the prying ears of twenty-year-old students she turned on him. “The nerve on you!” She hissed through clenched teeth her finger flying out to poke him angrily in the chest. “What are you doing?” She asked as he flinched away from her, hurt by the bruising poke.

He had seen her scold Isaiah on a few occasions for a bad temper or rude manners, but never had she looked at her son the way she was looking at her husband now. He actually believed his wife was on the verge of tearing him apart and she wasn’t going to do it quickly either, she was going to make him wallow in the pain. 

“Apologising?” It was more a question than statement as the man hung his head in shame. He really was so very truly sorry.

The woman grunted and even though he wasn’t looking at her face he could tell she had rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t be apologising to me.”

The Doctor looked up at her this time, green eyes connecting with her blue-green and even though she was trying not to show it he could see the hurt behind them. “It sure feels like I need to.” He mumbled. In not making it to his usual afternoon with Isaiah he knew that he had hurt her too. He never just spent Thursdays with his son, after the boy went to bed or when he was busy in the other room The Doctor spent Thursday afternoons with his wife. “I hurt you as well.” He explained softly his hand darting out to touch hers but he pulled back last minute knowing that she wasn’t going to be receptive at all right now.

She shook her head, “No, I wasn’t the one who sat on the front steps waiting until nightfall before I finally coaxed him inside where _your_ son went to bed without dinner and cried himself to sleep. That wasn’t my reaction to your not turning up, that was Isaiah.”  

His hearts contracted at the image. This wasn’t the first child that sat up all night waiting and he refused to let it happen again, especially when it concerned his own son. Isaiah should never have to wait, he gets priority over everything else even if they’d only spent Thursday afternoons together for close to a year. Isaiah Christopher Song was number one priority. Well, he should have been the other day and he wasn’t. But The Doctor couldn’t honestly be expected not to get into a bit of a jam only a day before he was due somewhere, if not minutes prior.

“Riv, let me explain!” He cried, reaching for her this time as his fingers curled around her arm. His face contorted in a pitiful plea.

She shook her head again as she tore her arm from his willing grip. “I have a class to get to, Doctor. You needn’t bother coming to visit anymore, I think it would be for the best.”

“River, that’s worse! He’ll only be worse next week if I don’t turn up and the week after that and the week after _that_. For the rest of his life he’ll be wondering why I stopped coming. You can’t do that, River. You can’t do it to him, you can’t do it to me.” His voice wobbled at the thought of not being able to see his son again. He’d already lost children. He couldn’t bare losing Isaiah. “Let me apologise to him, let me see him. Please?” The Doctor was seconds off of begging on his knees when River huffed and nodded softly before pulling away from him again. 

Although she granted him time to apologise to Isaiah the woman hardly thought she would arrive home, boy holding her hand to her husband sitting on their doorstep. Isaiah let go of her hand completely, too trusting as he ran for The Doctor. He was hoisted up in the air as soon as his father could hold him and squished tightly to his chest. The Doctor held onto the boy a little too tightly for a few seconds longer as he breathed the boy in and remembered what it was like to hold his warm little body. He could see River, out the corner of his eye gaping at him clearly surprised.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come over yesterday.” He spoke loud enough for the child’s mother to hear as the boy pressed his face into his father’s neck. He mumbled an soft ‘it’s okay’ into The Doctors dark tweed before squeezing him back tightly his little arms around his father’s neck. “No.” The Doctor shook his head. “It’s not okay, Isaiah. I promised I would see you and I broke that promise yesterday.”

Pulling back from his shoulder the little boy looked him square in the eye, his floppy waved fringe daring to fall into his eyes. “You were just busy.” The boy explained. “Mum gets busy too. We have to forgive people sometimes because things are out of their control.” The Doctor shifted his eyes to his watching wife quickly knowing that she heard the little boy’s words. Of course River would say a thing like that to Isaiah and then yell at him for not turning up. The boy understood completely. “It still makes me sad though. I thought you forgot about me, John.” He flinched at the title, Isaiah never called him John anymore.

“You should never be sad Isa, I never want you to be accepting because I’ve done something wrong. You should be mad at me.” The boy shook his head and The Doctor nodded. Crouching down on the front step of River’s Leadworth home The Doctor put Isaiah on his feet as he kept his eyes level with his own. “You can be mad at me if you like, even hit me if you want to.” He heard River make a noise but she quietened and he could only imagine it had something to do with the hard work she had put into making her son well behaved and well mannered, people didn’t _hit_ other people. Not like she could talk. He knew a River Song who would enter a room, guns blazing.

The boy looked startled for a moment, his face blank as he stared at The Doctor’s bowtie. The older man waited him out knowing the child was fighting it in his mind. They stood like that, The Doctor crouched and River watching patiently for a number of minutes before Isaiah’s little fist came out and hit The Doctor square in the chest. The Doctor beamed, praise falling from his lips as Isaiah did it again, this time a little harder. Luckily for The Doctor he didn’t hit as hard as Clara managed too but the pain, here with Isaiah, was all mental. He had built this rage up in his own child over one night and the boy didn’t know what to do other than bottle it all up.

“I thought you forgot about me.” Isaiah whispered as his hand, again connected with The Doctor’s chest. “I thought you didn’t care.” He hit him again and The Doctor did nothing but wait his son out. It wasn’t for another ten minutes that Isaiah finally gave unto exhaustion, tears streaming down his face as he collapsed into his father’s chest. “Daddies aren’t supposed to forget.”

Easily The Doctor scooped the little boy up cautious of River, whom of which he knew was waiting around probably aching to grab her boy and protect him from his father. But whatever she was doing, wherever she was in the front yard she gave them their space, enough to open the front door and let The Doctor carry Isaiah up to his room.

The boy was quiet the whole afternoon, clinging to the limbs of his father at every opportunity in fear of the man failing to turn up again. When night fell and his mother got as much food into him as she could the boy refused sleep weakly, exhaustion biting at the edges of his mind. He fell asleep, eventually, half on top of his father as the older man told him yet another one of The Raggedy Man’s great adventures this one being far more recent than all the others. This one being the reason he had missed their Thursday.

With Isaiah’s sleepy weight in his lap and soft hair under his fingers The Doctor realized that just once was enough to scar the five-year-old child. Just the once was enough to shatter his hope in him. He didn’t think it would have been so easy, the Time Lord had clearly thought wrong. He had become too comfortable with his trust in the TARDIS having him turn up on time and in that he messed up. He could have been on guard; he should not have decided an adventure, not so close to his son. The decision was stupid and selfish, he was hunting for the trill and in that he got carried away. His son was more important than that, he should have known better for his boy. Yet this time he had failed to do so and had hurt the child in the process.

He managed to untangle the boy’s limbs from his own leaving the child in his bed, tucked in just the way he liked before the man slipped out of the room in search of his upset wife.

The only light on downstairs was the one for her study and he knew that she wouldn’t be anywhere else. Walking quietly as to not disrupt the silent first floor he practically tiptoed through the living room. He knocked against the archway before stepping into the open room, River’s back to him her head down, pen in hand.

“I’m sorry, River. I’m really sorry.” He apologized again. It was the only thing he could think of saying around her, the only thing he thought he _could_ say around her. “It won’t happen again, I swear.”

Dropping the pen in her hand River turned from the essay in front of her to grant her husband with a small, sad smile. “It’s been three weeks.” She whispered so quietly that he almost didn’t hear her and even though he had The Doctor hadn’t quite understood. She took his silence as a signal to explain. “You didn’t miss one Thursday, you missed three.” Her words rang in his ears, his head suddenly hollow allowing for the sharp echo to infiltrate his mind. His head buzzed and his heart sunk. Three weeks. He hadn’t turned up in three weeks. His world span and the urge to vomit grew thick in his stomach.

He rolled his head forward as a mad panic took over his mind. With one adventure he had ruined everything. “Oh, River. I don’t deserve him.” He moaned as he slipped down the archway his body falling into a long limbed heap on the floor.  

Head still in his hands he heard River get up and move towards him. “You don’t.” She agreed, her hands on his knees as she crouched down in front of him. “But, Isa needs his dad and he deserves _you._ ” She squeezed his leg, trying to comfort the twelve-thousand-and-something-year-old man before her. “Be warned, if you hurt him again I won’t be so kind.” The Doctor nodded his head slowly, letting his wife know that he’d heard her loud and clear. Her voice softened when she spoke again, “He really loves you, you know. You’re all he talks about when he’s not talking about the stars. I think he has a general impression that you hung the bloody moon for him.” 

Lifting his head from his hands The Doctor looked River Song in the eye. “I would have, if it wasn’t already there. I would do anything for that little boy, River.”  She smiled softly at that, before her face fell the look forlorn and distant.

“That’s what makes him so dangerous to you.” She was looking past him, her mind wandering. It was another justification for why she kept him away. “Doctor?” She asked, her eyes snapping back to his before he had the chance to respond to her statement. “Why haven’t you gone back, to any point; the day he was born, some point through my pregnancy, anytime earlier than now. Why haven’t you gone back to be there?” He knew it was a loaded question but really it was simple.

The Doctor sat up straighter, a soft apologetic smile on his face to match her own melancholy. “You’re so scared that someone is going to use him against me, why would I go back to an earlier point, River, wouldn’t it make it worse?” She just stared at him. “I’m sure given if I’d found you while you were pregnant you would have run off with him as a new born. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to change one line.”  

River shook her head with a definite pout. “Not one second.”  She grinned leaning in a little closer to brush her lips softly against his own.

“It’s going to be brilliant, River. Just you wait.” The Doctor grinned back, his spirit back in place with her complete forgiveness. An image of Isaiah danced in his head, the boy he’d seen playing basketball in his teens; he was perfect, he was The Doctor and River Song’s son. He was alive.

The room fell silence, the soft light from the open study washing over their faces and battling the darkness from the living room. He and River sat a fine line between the light and the dark and every so often they’d slip from one to the other; good days and bad days, great moments and something quite the opposite.

They enjoyed each other’s company on that line holding out a hand to drag the other from the depths of darkness or to be the harbinger of a ruined day. But in this moment they existed together on that line as The Doctor pulled his wife into his lap and held her tight, leaving the soft light to battle the daemons in the dark.

He was convinced they wouldn’t go there again, the monsters put to bed before they themselves climbed under the sheets but sitting on the floor River Song’s mind hand another idea. “He’s going to die.” She whispered, refusing to look him in the eye while he only held her tighter. She had a habit, this woman did, of constantly fretting about her son. The Doctor couldn’t imagine that she was ever not fretting for the boy did take up all her focused time. He could understand though. She didn’t know how she was going to say goodbye.

“No.” The Doctor shook his head softly, voice warm and light. He pulled her out of the darkness with a single word and he was determined to set the world right. “He’s going to _live_.” Releasing his grip on her body, she shifted in his lap as he caught her chin tenderly.

It was there The Doctor made a promise, without the words. He promised to always be there, to never be late. Birthdays were promised and Christmas depended on the state of London (he did have a relative job to do) but he promised things like football games and basketball, of teaching his son to read and write. He promised the mundane things and then he promised the spectacular. He was going to teach Isaiah how to read the stars and a far more detailed existence of the universe than the child’s much loved planetary textbook.

He didn’t say any of these things to his wife but he promised her above everything else, no matter what Isaiah decided when the choice fell into his hands. She would not have to say goodbye to her son alone.

A sharp scream shook the house behind it all the heavy title of ‘daddy’ as the little boy called out in his dreams, terrified that his father had left. Instantly The Doctor was off the ground and race up the stars for the little boy who was calling out, torn from his dreams with the realisation that his father was no longer by his side. He was with the boy in second, his hearts pounding madly in his chest as he curled the boy up in his arms and smoothed the floppy hair back from his face. He rocked, without thinking about it as he soothed Isaiah from his bad dream, the boy fighting to open his eyes and face the real reality. With the warmth and smell of his father around him Isaiah instantly relaxed his tiny body slipping back into its sleepy state without a worry.  

The Doctor refused to tear himself from the child’s room scared that he would awake again with the same fright but he knew the five-year-olds bed was far too small for him and his long limbs were already starting to cramp. Spying the rocking chair in the corner of the room The Doctor untangled himself from Isaiah for the second time that night before stretching himself out on the rocking chair, happy to keep an eye on the sleeping child.

It was River who startled him minutes later as she draped a blanket over his legs and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. She whispered something about going to bed and that he’ll be safe to leave Isaiah if he so wished. The father turned her down politely as he smiled softly at his sleepy wife, he wanted to keep an eye on the boy.

When Isaiah woke late the next morning, the lay-in acceptable for a Saturday he refused to let go of his father. Insisting that the man simply had to stay the whole weekend; and The Doctor did. He stayed if only to chase the young boy around the house on the weekend free from River’s work constraints and Isaiah’s school schedule.

River didn’t know who was more of a handful; Isa or his father but she hadn’t cared when she heard the sweet laughter flow from her son so freely as they ran and played until they couldn’t do so anymore.

They completed each other in that sense. Ran the other to their limits and pushed them that little bit further. With time moving in its appropriate course The Doctor found himself anxious but each time he found himself focusing on it too much or deciding if he should leave, Isaiah would grab his hand and suggest another game. They never stopped, not for every long anyway and when they did it was to eat or fall in a heap on the living room floor listening whatever documentary River had left on the television as she moved around the house in her own time and space.

To watching onlookers, doorknockers and rare visitors for that weekend they looked like a normal family. The Doctor shed his tweed for a new change of clothes and took on the role of dad if only full time for that weekend.

If asked, he couldn’t lie. The Doctor enjoyed every second of the domestic bliss that surrounded him on those two days. He could have asked for the aches and pains in his mind to be gone, the begging tug of his TARDIS around the corner but in wishing for that to be gone he was being selfish. For on that weekend The Doctor got a look at the past five years of River’s life.

“He wore you out.” She chuckled, her hand pushing the hair out of his eyes as The Doctor huffed at her, exhausted. River smiled fondly, her eyes chasing his as he grinned back still seemingly trying to catch his breath.

“We wore each other out.” He tried for a compromise not willing to admit that the young boy had in fact run him ragged. Isaiah was asleep, tucked into the warmth of his bed, no story required on that night as exhaustion claimed his brain. “I don’t want to leave.” He mumbled, looking around the room as The Doctor tried not to give into the calming touch of her fingers running through his hair.

She hummed, shifting to sit in his lap as he wrapped his arms around her tighter. “You don’t have to, I mean. The universe will always be out there Doctor, you can go back to it whenever you want but if you want to stay, you can. I won’t complain.” She grinned wickedly as he looked at her knowingly. He’d hardly spent any alone time with his wife the whole weekend and now it was a rather tempting offer, one he would never turn down.   

The Doctor lent forward slightly to press a soft kiss to the tip of her nose, his hands moving to rest on her hips as he smiled at the vision in his lap. “Honey, I’m home.” He teased as he watched her eyes glisten.

“And what sort of time do you call this?” River teased back happily. It was a signal, a sign that they were back to normal. The Doctor had messed up rather horribly but he had redeemed himself to his little family over the weekend and nothing could be sweeter than their forgiveness. “Will you stay?” She asked softly, moving herself out of his lap so she could pull him up.

The Doctor nodded. “The universe can wait.” 


	9. The Governess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those of you who've been leaving kudos and comments you're all wonderful little readers.

Thursday Afternoons

The Third Year – The Governess 

He was seven-years-old when The Impossible Girl came to visit. Over the years he had heard her stories and as a result had been left wide awake by her wonder. Never in a million years did Isaiah ever think he would get the chance to meet Clara Oswald.

He hung upside down, his legs hooked over the back of the couch as his head hovered over the floor. Clara couldn’t help the startled laugh that left her lungs at the sight of the upside down, and what she had thought was impossible, young boy. Isaiah waved at her eagerly, his face spilt into a broad grin as the blood rush to his face.

Upon first inspection Clara couldn’t help but agree the boy looked an awful lot like the man who fathered him. She had been yet to meet his mother, and her name as well as the opportunity to catch a full glance at pictures had not properly happened. Even without the woman there was no doubt that Isaiah was his father’s son. His hair was a floppy mop on top of his head, dark and thick it made his emerald green eyes strike out against his faint honeyed shin. Constantly the boy had to push his hair off his face or behind his ears, when asked he always claimed it never bothered him in avoidance of getting it cut.

He, as much as she had heard and seen, explored life like everything was a dying breed. It never seemed to affect him that his time amongst the living was limited, he accepted that every moment and every opportunity was something he simply had to take. He had to work harder than the other kids, he had told her ecstatically with a childish grunt, and it took him longer to recover from a game of football but Isaiah Song was never the last child to participate and he was the last to give up.

“Hullo, Isaiah.” She waved at him, smiling. “Are you waiting for your mum?” She watched patiently, hands wrapped around a warm mug, as the boy nodded, upside-down. After a moment’s pause Clara began again but she only managed the child’s name before he flipped himself off the back of the couch and ran for the open door.

Isaiah called out for his mother, practically pouncing on her as she kicked the door shut behind herself. The whole world stopped as River Song laughed, dropping her shopping bags in order to embrace the boy.

River Song was Isaiah’s mother, but River Song was dead.

Had she not been dead when they first met at Trenzalore? But she had. Yet, here the woman stood, in the doorway of her home. Clara stood motionless unawares for what to do, The Doctor wasn’t there to propose introductions and essentially she was an uninvited guest in the woman’s home. Mentally she crossed her fingers, hoping River wouldn’t notice she was standing there gaping at the woman’s very much alive state.

It was Isaiah in the end who gave her away. He’d fallen, tripping over his mother’s bags and as he sat on the floor rubbing his ankle, the woman joined him; the two of them were in their own secret world as they whispered faces close. Isaiah moved back from his mother, his arm extended as he pointed to Clara.

She blushed, turning her attention to the cup in her hand rather than the woman who was smiling as she stood back to her full height. There was something terrifying about the woman, her confidence radiated in bounds, a cheeky gleam clung to her beyond the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ rule. But it was different meeting River Song this time than what it was the first time around on that dreadful day. This woman was a lioness ready to protect her cub and Clara suddenly found herself, alone in the lion’s den with no way out as River approached her and Isaiah disappeared in the other direction.

“My son tells me you’re The Impossible Girl.” River smiled, watching as Clara practically squirmed. The girl nodded in confirmation. “I would assume you didn’t know me, but with your jaw almost on the ground I take it that we’ve met and perhaps not under the best of circumstances.” Clara closed her mouth, unaware that she had left it gaping. The girl stuttered for a moment before sobering at the soft flash of pain across River’s face. Of course, no one wanted to know that their future held heartache or made it shocking to see her standing.

“You have a beautiful home.” Clara commented weakly, a small curtsey following as she commented on the politeness of her boy as well. “I hope I’m not intruding on your day.” River shook her head with a broad smile.

“Nonsense. You’re welcome anytime, Clara. Tell me,” She reached for her husband’s companion wrapping her arm around Clara’s as she did so. “Did you tell Isaiah you were the girl from his father’s stories, or did he figure that one out on his own?” Clara need not have said a word as River quickly gathered that her far too clever son had figured out a piece of the puzzle on his own.  “You know, believe it or not I am trying to keep him away from that fancy.”

Puzzled Clara stopped their small steps in the foyer, only a little while away from joining River’s other guests to look at the woman who always seemed to leave her with questions. “Fancy?” Surely this was not the River Song she’d met before. Perhaps she was just a human woman who had chanced to fall in love with The Doctor and only saw his tales as fancy and that only. What did she think he actually did with his time? “Surely, River you’ve seen …” but the words died on her lips as the woman hushed her.

“There is no seriousness of the sort in my home, especially around my son. Obviously my husband has not chosen to explain the situation to you but I need you to respect that my son may admire the stars but he only sees what people of this century can see. He knows there is truth to his father’s stories, but for now they are simply stories and I would like for it to remain that way.” River let go of the other woman’s arm as she moved for the other side of the house where her husband was awaiting his wife.

Clara gave them a moment, knowing that they arrived in the house with an absent River and greetings were in order. She loitered in the foyer, her eyes tracing over pictures she at first hadn’t paid any mind to while she sipped slowly at her tea.

It was Isaiah who found her, the boy trotting down the stairs absentmindedly. Joining her in admiring the pictures he reached up to wrap his little fingers around the ones Clara was using to hold her mug. She addressed him, smiling sweetly at the seven-year-old beside her.

“They’re in here, Miss Clara.” He tugged at her hand, his voice almost scolding as if she were a silly child. “Are you scared that my mummy bites?” He asked whispering by the door.

Watching as the child prepared to protect her Clara nodded softly. “I don’t know her all that well, I’m a little scared she bites to be honest.” Isaiah laughed at her softly before he pulled on her hand and uttered that he would just have to ensure that they knew each other well.

Being led by Isaiah into the open left side of the house Clara was emerged in the warmth of River Song’s home. Her eyes immediately fell to that of The Doctor and River, standing in the small sitting space to her right, The Doctor’s arm thrown around River’s waist, one of her hands on the back of his shoulder the other on his chest as they spoke to each other quietly.  She’d never seen him in such a state, laid back and acting _normal_. It was odd really, to see him with a wife and child, pieces of an unbuilt cabinet in front of him, something he had to piece together. It seemed as though the world had suddenly ended with that sight.

“Clara!” The Doctor jumped with his usual childlike excitement as he caught her in the room. “My wife, River Song.” He used his free hand, still holding the sonic screwdriver, to point at the woman he refused to let go. He knew that Clara had met her before but he was hoping to avoid any award introductions or accidental spoilers. This, he decided, was how it should have happened before Trenzalore got in the way. In his defence, he was still mourning the loss of his wife then. He had no idea Isaiah even existed.

“We met when I came in, Sweetie.” River teased, her hand patting at his chest as he frowned. He always loved a good beginning, endings were rubbish but beginnings were something brilliant and new. Still finding amusement in his childlike pout, River hummed pulling his attention from the sulking. “What’s planned for today?”

He had, in fact, several things planned and every intention to follow through with them but mainly The Doctor thought it would be best for River, Clara and Isaiah to get to know one another. The girl herself didn’t live far from Leadworth, and in the same century. Having her around might eventually provide itself useful for either his wife or son. Besides, they never knew when they would need a governess.

A picnic had been planned for the park across the road and Isaiah was quick to tug Clara along the asphalt to pick the perfect luncheon spot in the quiet park. He refused, since before they left the house, to let go of the other woman’s hand content to shadow her as she stood amongst their small family a little out of place.

They waited with the picnic basket and already laid out rug for The Doctor and his wife to join them and as they did Isaiah happily chatted, giving up particularly funny experiences with his dad.

Leaning in, her arms on her knees Clara thought of a particular moment in London to share with the boy about his father without breaking the strict rules she was told _specifically_ not to break. “He once told me that he had twenty-seven brains.” Clara whispered, her eyes tracing the little boy’s face as it twisted with laughter.       

“His head wouldn’t even look right, silly!” Isaiah chuckled, believing the girl actually found truth in his father’s words as his body rocked with the childish ability to find everything remotely funny hilarious.

Clara tapped at her chin, “He does have a bit of an odd chin through, doesn’t he?” 

“You’re silly, Miss Clara.”

“I’m as mad as a hatter.” The woman amended. “Do you see your dad a lot?” She asked, her mind inquisitive.

 It wasn’t until a few days ago that she had officially heard about Isaiah. She’d known about him for close to a year and a half but The Doctor hadn’t said anything to confirm her suspicious. He would say things when he wasn’t thinking, fall asleep standing up and the occasional photograph of a floppy haired young boy in a knitted jumper always managed to find her eye. She kept her patience with the man, knew that he wouldn’t tell her anything until he was good and ready. She was shocked to say in the least, Clara hadn’t actually thought the picture of the little boy was his son, a companions child maybe. Someone he saved. Never his son. And after he did tell her, the man couldn’t quite keep his mouth shut. Story after story, description after description it all came falling out. Spelling bees and camps, birthdays and Christmas’ it hadn’t been all that long but it seemed as though The Doctor couldn’t stop talking about the wonder of his perfect little son.

The boy nodded and shrugged simultaneously. “Every Thursday afternoon for three years. Sometimes he comes over more than Thursday though for big events or special surprises but mum tells me not to get my hopes up. He’s a busy man you see, Miss Clara.” She nodded, agreeing with her words as she pulled her arms around her legs, fending off the sudden cold breeze. “Can I tell you a secret?” Isa asked as he watched his father and mother start to cross the road. Clara nodded. “He’s not my real dad. I just picked him to be my dad.” She didn’t have time to press him further as The Doctor and River got nearer but she wanted to ask what he meant.

Surely The Doctor was his father, they looked far too much alike to not hold genetic relation. But the boy believed what he did and Clara wasn’t one to take Isaiah for a liar. The Doctor explained easily when she asked. They had eaten and talked for close to two hours and some point during Isaiah got up to run around and climb the playground, River was with him at the moment chasing the boy as his squeals of laughter flowed through the peaceful park.

“So he doesn’t know you’re _actually_ his father?” She asked after The Doctor had finished speaking, his voice eventually trailing off. The man nodded. “You’re letting him think that?” He nodded again.

“It’s what River wants.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke, instead he watched his wife as she caught their small son and tickled him into surrender. “She doesn’t want him hurt or forgotten, she just wants him to be loved and I can do it perfectly well just like this. River once told me that he deserved me, but I don’t think he does. He needs someone whose there for him all the time.” The Doctor shrugged as Isaiah called for him. He didn’t need to think about it before he jumped up and moved for the boy picking him up swiftly and throwing him up in the air.

She watched for a moment, an intruder in their lives as the planet rotated and everything else beyond those three in the universe didn’t matter. Isaiah was thrown up again, his young voice squealing as he called out for his mother’s help. As River stepped forward to help The Doctor quickly put the boy down before chasing after River and tackling her. Clara never looked away, happily reminding herself of times from her own childhood where her parents would play just as much as she did. It was important to have those memories and moments, to have that time with people you loved and people who loved you back.

She hadn’t known Isaiah very long but she knew he would need it. Every second of his happy life would need to be remembered. Her mother once told her about guardian angels, these sentient beings watched over her as a young kid, kept her from harm she believed that Isaiah had several of these guardian angels, how could he not? The child was perfect. But he needed just one more and she was silently assigning herself to making sure he was alright when his mad man of a father and – well she hadn’t really known what River was like, _exactly_ – his mother.

Sometimes a friend was needed over parents, at least she had experienced the mad world his parent’s lives revolved around.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for this chapter. It really wasn’t what I wanted it to be, it's pathetic really. Can I blame a shit week on being stuck with tonsillitis and bruised ribs or is that a cop out?


	10. The Middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those of you leaving comments and kudos!

Thursday Afternoons

The Fifth Year - The Middle

Being ten wasn’t about Isaiah at all. In fact turning ten was about someone else entirely. It was just the middle of his life that summoned the boy to ask and his father’s own guilt that made his sons wish come true. Then again, that was few nights from the boy’s birthday, he wasn’t one to see it coming.  

The sound of children rang in the adult’s ears as kids ran through the house and out to the back garden. It had only been a matter of hours but the house was already a mess. River watched as drinks were spilled and food was dropped, the neighbour’s dog happily walked dirt across the carpet while a few younger siblings of the party guests dribbled mushy biscuits against her couch. She cringed as she watched it happen. There was no point it saying anything about it now.

Her baby boy was ten today. Ten-years-old. Double digits. He was growing up too fast and as she watched the party goers enjoy their time she couldn’t care for the mess while her son ran and played. He didn’t have many friends in his younger years but he had found some now, a small collection with parents and siblings to count as enough people for a birthday celebration. She hadn’t cared how many people filled the house as long as the little boy enjoyed his time.

A woman huffed beside her as she carried a heavy box into the dining room and heaved it onto the table. “Clara, you’re a life saver.” River smiled at the girl who’d arrived with Isaiah’s birthday cake.

Clara grinned, she had offered to bake Isaiah’s cake weeks ago when the pressure to find a bakery to the little boys liking tired the older woman out. Her son was picky when it came to his sweets but he never turned down anything Clara placed in front of him. It’d been a no brainer when she offered and River hand been pleasantly thankful.

“Is he here?” Clara asked, fluffing about the table as she dodged children. River shook her head, worry biting at her fingertips. He promised he would be there, it was his son’s tenth birthday party after all. “He’ll be here.” She reached out for River’s arm, a sympathetic look on her face. She’d known River Song and her little boy for close to three years now Clara trusted that if The Doctor hadn’t arrived yet he wouldn’t be too far away. He never missed a day.

Isaiah was blowing out the candles on his birthday cake too busy with the hype of his birthday to ask where his father was. Even though he hadn’t asked River could see the question in his eyes. Every so often he would look up from a game or stop in the middle of a chase to scan the room for his father. She could see the worry building when the man was still yet to arrive. 

His friends cheered as he took in a breath as best he could and exhaled it with as much force as his lungs would allow. His lung capacity was that of seventy per cent, regardless the child always struggled with birthday candles. When the last one flickered out with a great big huff the boy opened his eyes to watch his mother, gleaming behind a camera as she snapped pictures.

“What did you wish for?” The Doctor asked against the boy’s ear causing him to jump. Leaping out of his chair, like he was five again Isaiah threw himself into the arms of his father. “You didn’t waste your wish on me, did you?” The boy shook his head smiling as his father squeezed him and his mother snapped another picture.

Clara moved around the table, ready to cut the cake for the impatient children already vibrating in their seats. “What _did_ you wish for, Isa?” She asked, smiling at him over her shoulder.

“It won’t work if I tell you.” River laughed, calling ‘nonsense’ on the child. The three watched him, waiting patiently to see if the ten-year-old would share his big wish. He shifted in his dad’s hold, still on the small side compared to the other children in his class he was still content to be held sometimes for the sake of being held. “I wished for a brother or sister.”

The Doctor stiffened at his son’s words whilst River took a step back. “Oh, no, no, no, no.” River Started. “No. Nooo. Not going to happen. I’m sorry, but no.” She shook her head as she spoke, hands raised.

“Do you want to say ‘no’ one more time?” Clara teased as she watched the panic on her friend’s face. It had only been a small number of years yet Clara considered herself a great friend of River’s and someone who understood the other woman’s actions. Clara could see the internal freak out as he friend reached out for Isaiah and ruffled his hair playful in an attempt to calm herself.

It hadn’t worked. River was still wound tighter than a music box and her husband beside her was no better. One would think neither knew of the acts of procreation and it was in fact the stork who brought Isaiah to them. But Clara knew them better, they were scared and even though she was certain they would grant their child with his every wish, this was one they wanted to steer clear from.

It was The Doctor who made the first move. Tickling Isaiah’s sides as she boy eyed off his birthday cake. It was a simple movement, playful attention but it the end it hadn’t really mattered. It broke the tension enough for River to break away from the end of the table and scurry into the house.

Isaiah’s wish wasn’t spoken about again that day. Eventually all the invited children, their siblings and their respective parents all trickled out the door. It was Clara’s turn as the sun started to set, laughter still burning in her eyes as she kissed the barely awake ten-year-olds forehead and moved for the door, her friend in tow.  River was practically begging her to stay a little while longer as she thanked the girl for her help throughout the day. The house was certainly cleaner now than what it would have been without Clara’s help.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay to drive home?” River asked lingering by the door as she watched her friend with worry, Clara only nodded with a happy smile. “You’re more than welcome to stay the night. The guest room is always ready for you.”

The girl tilted her head back and laughed, “Oh, c’mon River! You just want me to stay so you don’t have to talk with your husband about your son’s only birthday wish. No way am I going to help you avoid that!” Clara laughed again at the blush on her friend’s cheeks after this River was going to kill her. “Better hurry, traffic is going to be a mess.”

“But, Cla-“

“Go!” The girl shooed. “Tuck your boy into bed and _ignore_ the whole thing if you really want to but spent the night with that ridiculous man we both know most days are few and far between. He fights really hard to be here River.”

After she bid goodbye to her friend River Song did everything she said. Isaiah was tucked into bed, birthday cake still smeared across his face and as moved about her room, taking off the day she avoided the topic of Isaiah’s wish all together.

“Do you think we should tell him?” She asked, voice quiet as she slipped under the covers. “About you, you know, TARDIS, time travel all of that?” The Doctor shrugged, they had left it for so long only leaving truth in bedtime stories or on rainy days. He was fairly sure Isaiah already knew the truth between The Raggedy Man and his chosen dad. There was probably no need in telling the imaginative young boy, but then again he needed to hear it straight. “Do you think he needs to know?”

“He’s ten, River. I’m just playing by your rules. Do you want to tell him?” River bit her lip before shaking her head quickly.

“I just feel like he’s on to us.”

The Doctor laughed. “It’s because he is and Clara doesn’t help. She’s not very subtle.” River shook her head, not agreeing completely. Clara could be subtle when she wanted to, it was her imagination, the stories she created about what she did during her week were more farfetched than The Doctor’s adventures and Isaiah fed off of them, both governess and the boy thrived from the stories the other created. For a boy who didn’t _really_ know about the universe beyond he could out tell the echo of a Victorian governess.

Just as she’d settled completely, her husband on top of the sheets beside her Isaiah’s voice called out, pulling her out of bed instantly. The Doctor got there before her the boy already scooped up in his arms and being moved to the bathroom by the time she’d reached the door.

“I don’t feel too good.” Isaiah complained as he whimpered at his mother feeling as much of the toddler as he looked to the woman in that moment. It was but a second later that he reached for the toilet and emptied his stomach his mother slipping in beside him as he did so, so she could rub soothing circles on his back. The Doctor, silently, handed her a wet face cloth watching as she cradled her son against her chest while she cooled his forehead. “Too much sugar.” Sinking into his mother’s arms the boy groaned as his stomach continued to churn despite its being empty.

Using her free hand to pull his hair away from his face, River chuckled at him fully deserving the angry ‘stop it’ and weak shove the boy gave her in return. “Oh-no, bubba,” Keeping her voice at a soothing level she couldn’t help but grin. “You’re ten now, you’re the only one in fault for too much sugar.”   River didn’t have the heart to move the boy from the floor as his gut continued to churn and his eyesight blurred with the uncomfortable feeling of it all. “Happy birthday.” Pressing a kiss to his sweaty forehead, River smiled meekly at her comment knowing the boy couldn’t see the grin. Birthday’s had always been Isaiah’s favourite time of year but for Isaiah’s mother it meant his growing up. One step further away from being an innocent babe and one step closer to his final days.

Listening to his heavy breathing River rubbed soothing circles across his little back. “Love you, mum.” The boy mumbled against her shirt. They continued to sit in silence, listening to their beating hearts and slow breaths. A moment passed, several minutes in fact, the tiles were no longer cold under River’s legs and she stopped thinking about her sons fevered body against her chest. “Can I have bunk beds?” He whispered in the dark scared that his mother had fallen asleep.

“Why?” She asked back just as quietly.

“Bunk beds are cool.” Having forgotten he was there The Doctor’s addition of “bunk beds are cool” caused the boy to jump. Realizing the he had observed the fatality of the human condition, River cringed, it was only going to get worse from then on out.

“Who’s going to use the other bed?” She asked, causing the sick boy to think.

Isaiah shrugged. “My sibling?” He offered meekly as he sunk further against his mother while she laughed softly at his response.

“Isaiah,” She soothed, her hand in his hair. “Even if you got a sibling, which I doubt, by the time they are old enough to sleep in a bed you won’t want them in your room at all.”

The boy shifted, moving to face his mother in the dark his hands finding her face to cup her cheeks delicately. “You don’t have to be scared.” He whispered speaking loud enough for his father to hear. Although, to the boy, the man wasn’t biologically his father he felt that in this moment he needed to hear the words too. Isaiah could feel his mother quirk a brow as he made out the lines of her face in the dark. “Not everyone is going to be sick like me, mum. I think a baby would be _neat_ , but you don’t have to be scared.” River’s chest contracted, her whole body ached to but the young boy at ease. How did he know those things? How did he know exactly how to break her heart and mend every single one of the pieces in one go.

Pulling him close she muttered into his hair. “It’s not just that, Isa.” With simple words she conveyed to her boy that sometimes things were a lot more complicated than what they seemed to others. Getting a sibling was easy for Isaiah, but he wasn’t the one who had to go through the ordeal. Smiling against her cheek the boy understood. He moved, slowly at first, trying to stand before his father interjected and helped by holding him up. From there Isaiah requested to go to bed on the pretence that he felt much better.

They tucked him in for a second time that night, kissing his hair and slipping out of the room together. Neither parent at ease. The Doctor worried about his sick state asking if a hospital visit was required, with River’s firm head shake the man insisted on staying the night getting up every few hours to linger at the boy’s door. 

It was River who put a stop to his back and forth panic, huffing at him roughly as he climbed out of bed for what felt like the fiftieth time. She followed him instead, standing by Isaiah’s door at half past six in the morning staring at her husband as he stared at their boy. River huffed for a second time, this time turning on her heel and taking to the stairs, her husband followed.

She didn’t turn to address him as she moved through the houses first floor busying herself with making tea in the early morning light. River hummed to herself as she moved, preparing a cup for herself and one for the husband she wasn’t acknowledging. Pushing the mug towards her husband River sunk into one of the bench chairs beside him, still not speaking as she sighed heavily and rested her head against the cool countertop. “What are you doing, River?” Bringing the mug to his mouth, The Doctor asked.

“Waiting for Isa.” She mumbled back already half asleep against the counter, his constant up and down all night had disrupted her sleep.

“Why?”

“To make sure he’s okay. You seem adamant to keep checking on him so I thought it’d be better if we waited down here.” The Doctor scolded his wife for her actions, telling her it wasn’t necessary for them to wait. Huffing once again in annoyance River took a sip of her tea before pushing out of the chair and storming back up the stairs. The Doctor followed her as he had done before, watching as she slipped into Isaiah’s room and slowly lulled the boy out of his dreams.

“Can you please tell your dad you’re okay?” She asked softly, stroking his hair as he stirred. The boy nodded, mumbling his response loud enough for his father to hear. “Sweet dreams, baby blue.” River lent forward to kiss his hair as the boy snuggled back into his sheets and fell asleep.

Grinning slyly up at her husband the woman had intentions much the same as what her young son’s actions. Sweet dreams were her desperation and she was hopeful her husband’s hopeless panicking would stop so she could sleep before the boy awoke properly for the day.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry. I've been off balance all week. Finished school! Yeow! ... I'm so sad and now finals start. :(  
> Also a note that there has been something added to the first chapter. It's just a bible passage at the start:  
> I have made you. I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.  
> Isaiah 46:4
> 
> See you next week,  
> A


	11. The Swings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was just a short one, thought I may as well upload it now so I can finish a longer chapter for next week.

Thursday Afternoons

The Fifth Year, Third Week - The Swings

It was one of those dark days both mentally and physically. Rain clouds loomed above The Doctor and his grey skinned boy as they sat on the swings at the park allowing for the winds to guide their forward movements, or in the long legged man’s position a simple push of his toe against the dirt set him moving slowly.

It wasn’t a good day. In fact it was an incredibly bad day. The Doctor had arrived on Thursday, as he always did but instead of finding his son on his way home from school the man was greeted with his son tucked up in his own bed looking like death.

This week they sat on the swings, the chilly breeze pushing at their hair as Isaiah didn’t put the effort into trying to make his swing soar. It made his hearts ache to watch the boy, the life was drained from his little boy, his eyes had turned from their usual green to a faint grey as bags darkened under his eyes. River had told him the boy wasn’t sleeping very well and it definitely showed in his little face. Their swings swayed, the only noise between them being that of the wind through the trees.

“You have a time machine.” Isaiah mumbled, his head against the fingers he’d wrapped around the swing chain. The Doctor nodded in confirmation unsure if the boy’s sentence was a statement or a question. “After you leave do you just skip to the next Thursday and see me again?” Isaiah’s swing pushed slowly with a heavy gust, it was The Doctor who put his feet flat on the ground halting the movement of his individual swing. He wondered how much of it could be turned against him, a double ended sword, he could show eagerness to see the child again or an eagerness to be over and done with him. Which did he choose, which disappointment was the one to be displayed on the child’s face? “Because I guess, I’m not going to live very long” Isaiah continued, his head hung. “you should just get it over and done with. I’ll waste less time that way.” The young boy lulled his head forward watching as he moved back and forth over the ground watching as his small pair of oxfords flew over the dirt on their own for a moment before a larger pair of shoes interrupted his view and stopped his swing.

“Don’t think that. Don’t ever think that.” His father’s hands gripped at Isaiah’s shoulders, squeezing, pleading, encouraging a different thought. “You’re the most important thing in my life, Isaiah. You make the earth spin.” The boy shook his head, refusing to make eye contact as he continued to watch the dirt under his feet. “Honestly, without you life ceases to matter. You need to understand that.” He squeezed the boy’s arms firmly again.

“But I’m not important.” The Doctor shook his head, his hands tensing yet again. Leave it to his son to believe that. How many years had he spent travelling with people who believed themselves unimportant, their lives boring, or that no one needed them? Thousands. Were they preparing him for this moment? Surely not. But perhaps they were. A child’s mindset could be so fragile, especially that of Isaiah Song.

The Doctor smiled even though his boy wasn’t looking. “Didn’t I just tell you that you made the earth spin?” Isaiah nodded but he still wouldn’t lift his head. “It’s the same for your mum too. I don’t know where either of us would be without you Isaiah. We’d be lost, stuck in limbo, our lives just wouldn’t be the same.”

“Do you love me?” He asked, teeth gnawing into his bottom lip.

The Doctor grinned, his face almost cracking in two with the sheer force of it. He waited, one minute … two, just for the boy to look up and meet his eyes. He did. “All the way to the moon and back.” He whispered to his son, hand coming out to tap the boy’s nose. Probably more than that, he thought. To the moon wasn’t far enough.

“It’s 238,855 miles to the moon.” Isaiah rambled without thinking, causing his father to smile. The boy was always listing off facts about the solar system, sometimes without thinking first. The Doctor nodded at his comment, his smile widening as the boy looked at him in awe. _That was a long way_.

The Doctor watched him, the light returning to his son’s face if only a little. In only a minute the boy was pinker now than he had been the whole duration of his father’s visit. “You always talk about space travel, about how I go away but you never ask to come with or go anywhere.” The two had held and understanding between them since The Doctor’s second visit. His father was _The_ Raggedy Man the one who made alien races run away in fear at just the mention of his name. He touched the stars and chased daemons. He knew of thousands of planets the boy had only dreamed of.

Isaiah shrugged. “Mum would miss me.”

“Your mum could come.” The Doctor offered with a nonchalant shrug. River would never agree not in a million years. Not until her son was laid to rest and perhaps a little while after that.

“I don’t think she’d approve.” Isaiah shrugged again, it seemed to be his thing when he was ill. Head down and shoulder shrugging. The Doctor never minded, instead adopting his son’s mannerisms to better relate, River on the other hand couldn’t stand the sight of her son unwell. “She likes it here, my mum. I think travelling will make her think of what my dying has caused her to give up.”

“That’s a rather adult thought, Isa.” The boy shrugged again.

“It’s true.”

Again The Doctor’s hands were on his son’s arms squeezing the thin limbs softly. “Don’t think that she’ll give up on you, Isaiah. I knew your mother before you were a flicker of a thought, _long_ , before that. She has changed completely. She’s changed for _you_. Your mother, Isaiah Song, will do anything and everything for you and she’s willing to doing it.”

“It’s love.”

“Correct!” The Doctor beamed, jumping with the force of it. “All the way to the moon and back, remember.” Isaiah nodded, repeating the words quietly to his father the colour returning to his eyes slowly. But it wasn’t a good day, nothing was supposed to be right.

“The doctors say I might need an oxygen tank in the next two years, but mum said that if my lungs don’t decline too much then I won’t need too. I can’t get sick, she said, not even a little bit, infections are bad.” The Doctor nodded, watching his son as worry developed in his own eyes. He wished River had contacted him when Isaiah had taken sick that week. He needed to be there, not only for the boy and his mother but for himself as well. Surely his ten-year-old son couldn’t be _that_ sick. He was and Isaiah always had a brilliant way of reminding them of that fact.

Everything hurt, everything was wrong. He shouldn’t be sat on the swings with his dying ten-year-old son. He shouldn’t be watching as the child got worse, life was supposed to work the other way around. This was one ending he didn’t want to witness, one ending he could see coming and one he had to grit his teeth through. He couldn’t turn around and plug his ears as it happened or go back in time to change it. They’d placed their son’s fate in his hands, although not yet, the boy was still unaware towards his rather large decision but they were giving it to him.

The Doctor could do nothing but watch as his son picked his own end and forced his parents into watching it.

For now it wasn’t as much of a problem as it was eventually going to be.

For now, this was just a Thursday afternoon with his son.  

 


	12. The Rescued

Thursday Afternoons

The Fifth Year, Eleventh Week - The Rescued 

“ _River._ ” His voice was in her ear, calling into her dreams as his tone anxiously pulled her from them. She grunted at him softly, a warning at first, she was no one who enjoyed being roused from her sleep. He would crawl in next to her eventually, she believed, to sulk in her bed sheets until she was good and ready to address him in the middle of the night. “Riv-” He started again but was cut off this time by a sharp cry that set his wife’s body jolting upright.

“What is that?!” She whispered with a harsh hiss as her eyes stared at his sheepishly apologetic face in the soft moonlight of her bedroom. Her heart was pounding and her mind racing. She didn’t want to believe what she heard and she _certainly_ didn’t want his explanation. 

“A baby.” He answered weakly as he sat on the edge of her bed, the small bundle of child in his arms fidgeting in its swaddling bands.

“Whose baby?” She asked as she shifted to look over his shoulder curiously in the dark. “And if you say ‘ _ours’_ I might just kill you.” The man shook his head as her hand gripped at his arm, practically itching to touch the child’s blankets. Some part of her yearned to reach out and take the baby from her husband to revel in the infant’s cuddly warmth, but another part of her was terrified of what it all meant. The Doctor was sitting on the edge of her bed holding a baby in the middle of the night. What could he possibly have done? Had she left him, stranded in their future with a second child and needed her so desperately that he brought the babe to her now? Her thoughts were stopped when he shook his head.

The Doctor’s face fell. Something had gone wrong and by the looks of things it was all his fault. His wife softened quickly, sympathetic to the man who only tried to make things right. “His parents are dead. I messed up, River, I couldn’t save them and now he had to suffer the consequence of my mishap.”

“We’re all suffering the consequence of your mishap.” She teased lightly as she kissed his cheek affectionately, her hand still holding a tight grip on his arm so much so he was starting to feel her nails digging into his skin.

The baby cried out again, this time more insistent that the last. One cry followed the next and soon enough the small child was wailing. River looked up at her husband her eyes wide with panic as her heart started to pound, again.

Instantly she had recognized the child’s cries causing her mind to hurtle into action as she feared the loudly wailing baby would not only wake her ten-year-old son across the hall but that of her neighbours and their children as well. “I don’t have any formula or bottles.” She gaped at him, suddenly aware that she had nothing in her home to cater for the needs of her husband and his newest companion. River had thrown out a majority of Isaiah’s old things after he’d grown out of them knowing she’d never need it again, now she found herself incredibly unprepared. It was her husband’s fault for throwing her in the situation. 

She glared at him sparingly with a short hiss worth of a warning towards not waking their sleeping son as she shoved him down the stairs and into the living room.

River had stepped out to the neighbours in the middle of the night, in desperate need to cater to that of her husband’s constant surprises. She didn’t even bother with changing out of her pyjamas as the infant’s screams followed her to the front door and through the garden.

Upon her return River was greeted with the sight of her husband, the infamous Oncoming Storm, pacing the foyer screaming baby wriggling, now free from his confides, in the man’s arms. It wasn’t the tired, already worn out look on The Doctor’s face that made her heartache when she stepped in the door, nor was it the child’s cries. Instead, her chest contracted as her eyes caught sight of her own flesh and blood sitting worriedly on the stairs.

She had only been gone five minutes to borrow a bottle and formula from her neighbours who were luckily already up with their newborn. When she returned it seemed as though her whole house had fallen victim to horrific destruction. Her boys never seemed to manage without her, even for five minutes.

River kissed the top of Isaiah’s head as she reassured him and sent him back up to bed. She moved for her husband next, ushering him and the distraught child into the other room while her son parted with them at the stairs, still unsure of what was conspiring in the night as he slept.

She moved for the kitchen silently not bothering to switch on the lights, instead she busied herself with boiling water and preparing the bottle. Checking it was warm enough against the soft skin of her wrist she put the finished bottle on the bench to reach for the child. The Doctor surrendered him slowly and quickly River realized it was the first time he’d let go of the child since he arrived.

River smiled thankfully as she cradled the still vocal child in her arms, not needing a second at all to get used to the small weight. Quietly The Doctor handed her the bottle and as soon as it was near enough to the child’s mouth cries immediately turned into the suckling sounds of a feeding babe as he attempted to drain the bottle in a single go.

“He can’t stay here.” She whispered in the dark scared to break the beautiful silence as she rocked the babe in her arms. River didn’t know what her husband’s intentions were but she had a pretty good guess concerning why he brought the child here.

“His parents are dead.” He repeated, melancholy and guilt dripping from his voice.  

“Someone will miss him. He can’t stay here.” She insisted as Isaiah stuck his head through the door much too nervous to sleep and somewhat intrigued at the now sudden silence.

The boy inched closer, his mother watching him out the corner of her eye. He should have been in bed, it was only Thursday night, yet she understood that his sleep had been disturbed and he still didn’t know why. At ten years of age he didn’t have much experience with babies, that didn’t stop River from noticing her boy had always been curious. Slowly and quietly River moved for the loveseat at the other end of the room, allowing for Isaiah to climb up next to her after she sat, to peek at the now quiet infant in her arms.  

Smiling The Doctor watched his son slowly get closer to the monster that dragged him from his sleep. He needed River to understand, needed her to accept. He meant it when he said no one will notice the boy’s missing state. The boy’s parents were nomads, the only family they had were each other and their home was along the road. “No one will, Riv. He’s got no one and nothing.” He insisted, his tone pleading with her.  

“What? So you brought him to me? Why?”

“You have Isa and you’re my wife.” The Doctor shrugged, it had seemed that easy in his head when he looked down at the newly orphaned child.

River nodded, then shook her head. “Yes, Doctor but he’s my son, this boy isn’t. Do you even know how much children cost? I don’t have anything here for him, I’d have to take time off work, think of something to tell the neighbours, the university. I, I can’t do that. You can’t expect me to. I’ve done my bit, I’m still doing it, I’m raising your son.” She looked over to Isaiah finding the child was drifting off against her arm. She didn’t want to fight in front of him she couldn’t bear the thought of upsetting him because of a silly quarrel but it needed to be said regardless of the fact that her son was out of bed.  

“What am I going to do with him?”

“You should have left him there.” Trying not to disturb her sleeping son River stood. Moving around the love seat she stood behind it, right in front of her husband  so she could hold the baby out as if refusing the food on her plate. The child’s chin wrinkled as The Doctor took him off his wife’s hands, a whimper forming around the teat of the bottle. He had been half asleep with the comfort of the warm liquid sliding down his throat and the gentle arms of the woman holding him, with the switch of position the boy disagreed.

Isaiah murmured on the couch half asleep as the baby boy started to whimper, neither adult noticed his waking up, too busy staring at the other in panic and anticipation of the infant’s screams. Waking up fully, Isaiah rested his chin on the top of the couch as he watched his parents standing in the dark, grunting baby between them. He broke their agitated moment as he rubbed his eyes and mumbled a question that seemed simple to both infant and child; “Why can’t he stay with us?” River, arms now free, moved towards the back of the couch ready to defuse her son’s thoughts. “I did wish for a sibling. Birthday wishes have to come true and a brother would be pretty cool.” He turned puppy dog eyes on his mother hoping that would be all he needed to persuade her in the dead of night.

River disagreed. He was a child, her didn’t understand the logistics of what was happening and although he knew The Doctor was _really_ The Raggedy Man he didn’t quite understand the possibility that the man could bring a baby home from another planet and expect his wife to hide it. She was in no way obliged to take anything from the twelve-thousand-year-old alien. “Not this kind of sibling, that’s not what you asked for.”

Isaiah shrugged. “A brother is a brother. He _needs_ us, mum.”

River shook her head, determined to stick to her guns. “This isn’t like asking for a toy in the store, Isa. You can’t just beg and turn bright eyes on me. It won’t work.” The woman stood her ground, her resilience fading as the baby in her husband’s arms stopped grunting to shriek.

 “Mum,” Isaiah whined, his hands over his ears as the baby squirmed in his father’s arms. “Take him mum. Dad’s rubbish with babies.”

It was the defiant ten-year-old who’d made the decision at the end of the day. Reaching up to his father he held his hands out for the baby and The Doctor complied. Instantly, River was on edge, hovering behind her son whilst muttering to support the baby’s head. “Why don’t you take him?” He asked, shifting the child who was still crying, albeit quieter in Isaiah’s hands than in The Doctors.  

River shook her head at her son, she wouldn’t do it. She held the child to feed him, not trusting her husband’s clumsy hands. She would not take the struggling babe from her son’s slippery grip just to comfort the child. It didn’t matter now that Isaiah was ten, she still panicked around babies and the clumsy hands of children and some adults. As she watched her son hold the small person everything her already clumsy child could trip over in the small space between The Doctor and herself was suddenly revealed to the woman, without thinking she jumped forward to take the infant from Isaiah, not wanting him to fall.  

Isaiah beamed, his mother having fell right into his trap. “He likes you.” The boy commented as the infant rested his head on River’s shoulder and his cries settled. She didn’t want to crack, she wanted to stick to her insistence but the cuddly warmth against her chest was bringing back the warm fuzzies of Isaiah’s youth; moments she always wished she could have back after they’d past. This child, she thought, would at least give her the chance to experience it again.

“Does he have a name?” She asked, eying her husband in a way that told him she was not too impressed with being beat.  

The Doctor nodded as Isaiah watched her with a bright beam, something reserved for playing during the day, not getting what he wanted in the middle of the night. “Samson.”

“We better watch out for Delilah then.” She joked, the name finding itself in her memory as she smiled at the child in the darkness as he got his hand in his mouth and sucked on it lazily. The Doctor watched her quizzically. “It’s a Biblical name: _his sun; his service; there the second time_. Samson and Delilah are rather well known – never mind.” She hummed finding her audience was lacking in reception.   

Reaching for the infant’s tiny hand, Isaiah looked up to his mother. “Can he stay?” He asked quietly. The fact that the child had fallen silent in his mother’s arms was not lost on him or his parents.

The decision wasn’t one made by River Song, no matter how much she fought it. The decision was left in the tiny hands of the baby in her arms, the child who already had the woman wrapped around his little finger. River sighed softly, as she looked down at the little boy she cradled one of his small hands clutching tightly at her finger. 

“He’s going to need a crib, clothes, toys…” River started to ramble as she rocked the child and listed things off. The Doctor just watched her with a smile, glad she’d agreed.  

River glared at him when she caught her husband smiling lazily in love, already, with the image of her holding the child. He’d missed this when Isaiah was born, all the incredibly small moments one never loses and just like River he was being granted a second chance to experience it. One he wouldn’t miss out on. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we can find something in the TARDIS for the time being.” She knew exactly what he was thinking of as the smiled at her and muttered that he’d be back before he ducked out of the house and down the street.

The night dwindled on as Isaiah was sent to bed for the third time that night and finally stayed there. The Doctor’s crib was retrieved from the TARDIS and the infant was placed down to sleep without a single fuss next to River’s side of the bed. 

As the sun rose along with everyone else in the house, The Doctor did as River said. Patiently he threw things into Isaiah’s lunchbox as River watched him from the other side of the bench, Samson feeding in her arms. Isaiah moved around the house, his shoulders slumped and mind yawning as he got himself dressed for school and ate breakfast. The Doctor walked the boy to school like that, the child far more tired than the man, both blissfully quiet and less energetic on their walk than what they had been some mornings. After Isaiah had passed through the front gates of the school grounds and hugged his father good by The Doctor returned to the house only to be pushed back through the door and shoved into River’s car.

“We should have picked out a pram first.” River spoke directly to her husband and she turned sympathetic eyes to the man and the child sleeping in his arms. He had been instructed to hold the infant as his wife wandered the store muttering things to herself as things were thrown in the cart. To be honest, The Doctor liked it that way. He was sure his wife was muttering angrily about him and was happy to keep his distance.

River couldn’t help the small smile that graced her lips as she watched her husband for a moment. Samson was lying on his back against the man’s arms, his own little appendages hanging limply in the air. Had she known any better she would have seen the sight of a man carrying his dead child, but she had learnt quickly that the boy was floppy limbed. She pegged the child’s age at only six months, based on his progression as she watched him try to sit on his own on the couch that morning while she helped Isaiah with his school tie. 

The Doctor shrugged. “It’s okay.” He smiled back at her, not minding the child’s dead weight in his arms. When it came to Samson’s sleeping form, the boy lost all muscle resembling that of a well-loved doll. The Doctor couldn’t think of a reason to mind.

He hummed, smiled and nodded his head when River asked his opinion on furniture. Luckily for her, the home she lived in had a guest bedroom and their new found family member wouldn’t have to impose on anyone else’s personal space – not that Isaiah minded, he was already planning bunk beds. The man hadn’t really cared and couldn’t understand why his wife agonized over which colour of wood she should use in the guest room, newly dubbed nursery.

The man danced on the spot, Samson now awake and attentive as they stood with the cart full of clothes that would last the child a whole year and whatever else River had managed to throw in there. He would have laughed, called his wife over prepared, if she had not already raised one child through this age. Knowing that she’d done this before, kept The Doctor quiet while he patiently put up with the smiling shop assistants and other customers in the store.

It was when his legs grew tired and his arms grew sore and Samson started to grumble that River called it a day.

He lost count towards how many times he moved from the car to the house just unloading what River had bought in a couple of hours. He was left to do it alone while she stopped to feed Samson who, as they learnt quickly, was a rather impatient child. Walking back into the house, the last set of things in his hand The Doctor was greeted with the sound of his wife berating herself for scheduling the high chair she’d bought to be delivered the next day instead of bringing it home with them.

“Calm down, River.” The Doctor called through the house as he moved to find her in the kitchen. “People are supposed to have nine months to organize this stuff, you didn’t have any time.”

River shrugged. “I didn’t have anything for Isaiah when he was born. I guess it was easier then. He was only a new born all he needed was a bassinet and a rocker, furniture wise. Everything else Amy and Rory jumped too while I was sleeping so I didn’t have to worry.” The Doctor opened his mouth to offer services off the kind but River cut him off. “I don’t trust you in that store looking for something in particular. You’d come home with everything _but_ what I asked for.” The Doctor nodded, agreeing with his wife. He had been rather distracted in the store, acting more like Isaiah when she went shopping than a proper adult. It wasn’t right to call her husband a proper adult, though. “I’ll manage, just you watch.” She beamed, holding the child as he skulled his bottle. One would think they hadn’t feed him in days.

The Doctor couldn’t help but feel that his wife had slapped him in the face with her last comment. He wanted to help, he wanted to be there. He didn’t want to leave her with a baby and just disappear. She didn’t need to prove herself to him, yet River was already putting her mind on the defensive. He had already left her with a child, she had adapted to being on her own and it was his fault. He hated himself for that as The Doctor watched his wife pick up the little boy and cuddle him to her chest. He had missed that in Isaiah’s youth, when the boy was defenceless and needed constant nurturing.

“Do you need me to do anything?” He asked, watching as she kissed the boy’s cheeks playfully causing the boy to gurgle back at her. Breaking away from the child in her arms River stared at her husband, she could think of countless things for him to do, majority of it including putting together the pieces of furniture they’d brought home with them; mainly the crib and that’s exactly what she asked him to do.

River sat with him as The Doctor put together the bedding for their smallest new addition, she bit down on her tongue, shying away from quips about his sonic and finally using it appropriately. It took longer than needed to piece together the crib as The Doctor would stop and turn his attention to the cooing Samson who was lying on a blanket on the floor.

He played and cooed, rolling around on the floor with the little boy who had managed to roll himself over. River watched as the two interacted, rescuer and rescued. She had worried at first what she was going to tell people about how she procured the boy but watching her husband, observing the love both he and Isaiah bestowed upon the child she knew it wasn’t going to be hard. People would believe a story of desperate adoption because she felt the _need_ for this child that was suddenly experienced by the members of her small family.  

Watching as her husband played with her newly dubbed son, River realised the boy’s presence was something of a comforting relief and ample distraction for all of them. 


	13. The Bad News

Thursday Afternoons

The Fifth Year, Twentieth Week – The Bad News

Surprisingly The Doctor’s visits lengthened.

A whole two months had passed since he brought Samson to her and he had stayed. She watched as the hours passed, as the man fought to keep still as the end of the week dwindled closer she could tell that he was starting to grate on Isaiah’s usual calm. But she was glad he was there. If not for the newly arrived Samson but for their sick son. It had been five years since The Doctor found out about Isaiah and it pained her to think they still weren’t spending enough time together.

It pained her to think that he would one day claim they weren’t given enough time together. She couldn’t let that happen, she couldn’t be the one to blame. The Doctor made his choice, under her suggestion, she was trying to protect her son but perhaps in that sense she was hurting him. No one needed to criticize River Song for her parenting, for the way she tiptoed the universe behind her son while he wasn’t looking. The guilt was plaguing her. He didn’t matter anymore. She watched her boy grow, watched his love for the stars and the planets blossom. More often than not Isaiah was found, sitting in the back garden, his neck stretched skyward. She was holding him back and he just wanted to reach the stars. She couldn’t let him do it, no matter how much she hated herself for it, she couldn’t let her son reach that far.

She smiled, inwardly as she fed the little boy her husband had thrust upon her. She wouldn’t have the problem of holding him back from a greater destiny. He was a human child, that which he could earn he could find in this life, on this planet at this time. She did not think he would long for the stars like her son did and that made her feel safe.

“So this is what human life _really_ feels like.” The Doctor hummed as he dropped down on the couch beside her a glass of red wine in his hands with her name figuratively written all over it. She hummed at him, smiling thankfully before she turned her gaze back to the boy in her arms suckling greedily on his bottle, eyes already fluttering shut as he fought out the battle between two needs.

The Doctor watched them both in the dim light. The year of the slow invasion, the year he spent time with Amy and Rory was nothing like this. There was no one waiting for him to put their son to bed and bring them a glass of wine. There was nothing warm to cuddle, or children’s smiles. It upset him to know that his wife and small son were hidden away just down the street that year. Yet, he still wouldn’t go back to change a thing.

“Do you want me to put him down?” He asked, noting the boy’s slack mouth and shut eyes. Shifting so he could slip his hands under the infant’s body, River nodded and surrendered the child. He traded with the woman, child for her glass of wine and with a kiss dropped to her forehead he moved slowly for the little boy’s new room.

He stopped for a moment at the little boy’s crib just to breathe in the moment of putting the child to bed. He couldn’t carry Isaiah anymore and the man found that he missed the simple action during the night time routine. He hummed softly as he lowered Samson into the crib and pulled the blankets over him before wishing the sweet boy goodnight. He stopped at Isaiah’s door before making his way back down the stairs, checking on the young boy before he continued with his night.

“Someone would think they were dead to the world.” He whispered as he stepped back into the living room. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it quickly as he noticed River’s wine glass on the table and her head tilted back in sleep.

Chuckling to himself The Doctor stepped towards his sleeping wife and carefully slipped his arm under her knees and the other against her shoulder blades. The woman in his arms didn’t stir as he carried her up the stairs and tucked her into bed. He didn’t blame her for falling into deep sleep the second she got a quiet moment, as far as Saturday’s went he was fairly sure this one was hectic.  Between the morning routine, Isaiah’s check-up and then the basketball game they _couldn’t_ be late for neither adult managed to sit down and breathe for a full three hours. With a Saturday like that he could understand his wife’s tired state, her whole week had been the same and he was the one to blame.

River mumbled softly as he lowered her to the bed, but she did not wake completely. Pressing a kiss to her forehead The Doctor pulled the blankets up to her shoulders before doubling back and switching off the light. Taking a breath as he stood by the door The Doctor took a moment to admire the quiet air that had fallen over the little house. He liked noise, lots of it, it meant people were alive, adventure was there and the enemy was in chase. Here in the quiet, wife and children asleep it was just as comforting as one of his wild adventures and the man couldn’t seem to be able to understand why he felt as relaxed here as he did in the TARDIS. Out here, life existed, the normal life, the life his companions led. He’d never been so comfortable before but none the less his head was spinning.

He wouldn’t be able to stay much longer, the shake in his hands was becoming too much but the Time Lord couldn’t seem to pull himself away, not just yet. He had to hold onto them, River and Isaiah and even Samson in an alluring sense. He rescued that child like his own child and rescued him and in that he owed the infant enough compassion and fatherly care to last him a long lifetime. The Doctor couldn’t help but think how homely, how much larger they all seemed with the edition of this young boy. It was a good thing, he reasoned, even though River had to change a lot in order to make it work. But she was happy with the child, he couldn’t ask for much more than that.

It was going to get worse though, that was an inevitable truth. As he snuck out that night, kissing each member of the household on the forehead before he left The Doctor couldn’t help but worry for the unknown that loomed above them, threating their happiness.

[…]

It wasn’t long before everything went wrong. At first, he was held back in his basketball games, then he stopped participating all together. When Isaiah Song struggled to walk all the way to school without having to stop three times to catch his breath, alarm bells started to ring. When his words slurred because he couldn’t find the strength to get it all out, he was, without a second thought, rushed to his specialist.

River fidgeted as she watched the doctor fuss around her son. Nurses came in and out, as was routine; checking his heart rate, blood pressure, listening to his shallow breathing. Things were scribbled, voices were hushed and River was left in the dark. She rocked Samson on her hip trying to comfort herself and the little boy. Isaiah reclined on the bed they registered him to, his eyes closed as he listened to the people move around him. River wanted to shake him, bring the child back to his senses, tell him the whole thing wasn’t a joke. Why wasn’t he scared? Why was she the only one there who was trembling?

“Mum?” His voice broke through the raging panic in her mind.

Jumping, she moved for her sun, the free hand that wasn’t holding Samson clutching to Isaiah’s frail, smaller one. The nurses had left the room, Isaiah’s usual doctor conversing with them outside the door, worry shadowed on his face through the sliver of glass. “Is Clara still coming?” He asked, voice quiet and rough. He refused to open his eyes as he felt her warm hand engulfing his own.

He was ten-years-old, this is how he dealt with the cards he was given and although his mother’s thumb was brushing over the top of his hand, begging for him to just look at her. He had to detach, he wanted to detach. River nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat and whispered a quiet ‘yes’. “Good,” Isaiah tilted his head. “I was looking forward to seeing her this weekend.”

River choked back a sob. “Isa,” She lulled, her voice cautious as her thumb continued to stroke his hand. “Open your eyes.” The boy shook his head. “Please?” Another shake. 

He inhaled deeply but his breathing remained shallow. “I’m tracing the stars.” He grinned, his head tilting towards her, his eyes still closed. “I’m okay, mum. Promise. I just like it like this.” Unable to hold her tears back River gave her son a watery smile, well aware that he couldn’t see it.

“Do you want Daddy?” She asked, using the title he only used when incredibly tired or around Samson. The boy shook his head. “You sure?” He nodded.

“I’ll see him next week.”

“He won’t mind.” She pleaded, needing the man more than her son did. But if Isaiah didn’t want him there she would not go against her sons wish. She would not contact him on this night, but she would do so on the next.

Doctor James Andrews knocked on the door, breaking the silence between mother and sons. “River, Isaiah, sorry it took so long.” He spoke calmly as he moved to the foot of Isaiah’s bed and apologized, mainly to the woman for their two hour visit. Andrews clasped his hands, his face falling as he turned to address Isaiah straight on. “We talked about the possibility of an oxygen tank maybe in a couple of years depending on illness and/or infection.” The boy nodded his head as the doctor left a moment of silence for the conversation to reform. “In most CF patients we see a steady, healthy control over lung deterioration through exercise, sport, healthy living. In your case, Isaiah, this doesn’t seem to be helping. You’re immune system is far weaker and you’ve picked up quite a number of infections this year that have lead you to a rather bad state now.” The boy nodded again, his eyes closed the whole time. “I want to assign him an oxygen tank,” Andrews turned to River now, whose attention was paid wholly to the doctor while Samson in her lap pulled on her hair. “You said he was struggling with the stairs, long walks, sport. We’ll trial this on him for a month, see how he goes. Things might pick up, they might not.” River nodded, her face blank.

Leaning on the end of the bed, Andrews spoke directly to Isaiah again, worry of a personal nature creeping into his eyes. “Are you okay, buddy?” He asked, as a friend not a doctor. Isaiah nodded.

“I’m tracing the stars.” Andrews smiled, his hand squeezing Isaiah’s foot before he turned back to River and explained that a nurse would be in with the oxygen tank and would show them how to maintain it. 

River watched quietly as a nurse named Becky introduced herself and sat with Isaiah on the edge of his bed. Gently, she encouraged the boy to open his eyes while she showed him the nasal cannula and explained how it would work and how he was expected to wear it. Isaiah’s nose crinkled as she pulled the tubing over his head and tucked it behind his ears. With the prongs in place she slowly turned on the tank. The boy giggled softly at the soft brush of air against his nose, flowing continuously. Becky ran over care instructions telling Isaiah the tubing had to be changed every two to three weeks or immediately after a cold had ended. The boy listened attentively, the nasal cannula now permanently in place for the next four weeks. 

When they arrived home, Clara was sitting at the kitchen bench, cup of tea in hand as she patiently waited for them to return. It was Isaiah who caught her eye first, the boy’s honey skin was too pale as he walked through the door and the oxygen tank trailing behind him had not been there the last time she’d seen him.

“What happened?” Clara gasped, eyes wide as she looked to the boy for answers.

“Clara!” Isaiah jumped, his voice quiet while excitement flashed across his face. “You should see Sammy, he can sit up all by himself.” The boy explained, ignoring the sound of the essential life support he was dragging behind him.

“I thought they said oxygen in a couple of years, not now. He’s ten!” She looked to River as the woman followed her son through the door a few minutes later, eight-month-old on her hip.

“He doesn’t even think about rolling anymore, he just goes. Mum has to section off the living room.” Isaiah interrupted, changing the topic from himself to that of the small child he’d been dotingly in love with. Turning from where he stood, Isaiah held his arms out, reaching for the child of whom he spoke to prove to Clara the things he had said.

Not used to the lump of tank, his imminent survival tool, Isaiah tripped clumsily almost falling straight into his mother if the woman hadn’t steadied him with her free hand on his shoulder. Boy straight again, River ran her hand through Isaiah’s hair as she offered Clara a silent apology, Isaiah was avoiding the topic of himself and was stopping at nothing to do so.

River reluctantly let go of the infant in her arms allowing for his weight to shift from her hip to the tight hold of Isaiah’s grip. She followed behind carefully, scared that the boy could not maneuver a small child and his O2 tank alone. Isaiah managed, as he always did without the assistance of his mother as he managed to get Samson down on the play mat they left sitting on the floor. He helped the boy into a sitting position before turning his head to grin proudly at Clara. “See?” He asked, voice still quiet. The scratchy, tired sound of the young boy’s voice was something Clara assumed would not go away quickly, along with the effort it took for him to actually get the words out. He was exhausted and if the look of him didn’t tell anyone that certainly just from hearing his voice would.

“He’s getting so big.” She commented, moving over to the play mat to sit down next to the sit boy and the small infant. “Did you help him learn that?” Clara asked, engaging in the distraction Isaiah was enforcing even though she knew his carrying of conversation wouldn’t last very long. Isaiah shook his head explaining that Samson had learnt that one on his own.

The infant in front of them bounced on his rump, his hands clapping in front of his smiling face. Clara beamed as did Isaiah while the little boy soaked in the attention. The rest of the day followed in a similar pattern, the complacent yet loud boy held the attention of both Clara Oswald and Isaiah Song. River, whom of which tended to his every call busied herself around the house making sure her son was able easy mobility around the house and wide berth for the small trolley that carried his oxygen. She didn’t stop until Clara tore herself away from the children and cornered the quiet woman.

“Where’s The Doctor?” She asked quietly, cornering River in the laundry. River shook her head, a simple ‘adventuring’ slipping from her mouth as she sorted out which child’s shirt she held in her hand. “What, what happened River? I thought you were told an oxygen tank in two years, but only possibly.” River shook her head deciding the shirt was too small for Isaiah and tossed it into a basket holding Samson’s clothes.

“He’s not doing as well as we hoped.”

“That’s not a good thing is it?” She asked softly a slight tremor in her voice. She had not known the boy for very long but to deny a loving attachment would make Clara lie to herself. The thought of his decline was unbearable she could only think it would be worse for his mother.  

“Doctor Andrews wants to trial him for a month. That’s all, he’s fine, Clara.” River shooed the girl off, distracting herself in mindless chores like her son turned attention to the babe rather than himself. Little did they all know, Isaiah wasn’t going to get off the oxygen, not in a month, not in three years.  Isaiah wasn’t getting better and his body wasn’t reacting to the things the doctor’s needed it to. Instead his parents were left to watch as their ten-year-old began to deteriorate, the light fading from his eyes. It was there and then that they decided he needed to be told and the decision needed to be placed in his hands. 


	14. The Old Girl

The Eighth Year, Second Week - The Old Girl

Isaiah was turning into a shadow of his old self at thirteen years of age he was hardly recognisable as the fun loving five-year-old who swooped and soared in the park one lazy afternoon. It was killing those around him as much as the illness itself was killing him.

His parents argued, Clara worried and Samson grew bigger each day silently aware of his brother’s coming fall. The Doctor and River held off for three years before they sat Isaiah down explain the exact intricacies of The Raggedy Man and his blue box. It was there, again, that they explained the devastating effects of Isaiah’s illness before they told him of a solution. Then it was left in the boy’s hands. Thirteen years old and he had to make the call towards saving his life or not.

The decision remained unknown to the adults, the boy playing his cards close to his chest as the world continued to move around him and each day he grew closer to his death.

The small family was curled up on the small couch in the quaint sitting area at the opposite end of the kitchen. Both boys were worn out and tired, birthday cake frosting smeared across both their faces as they fought sleep against their parent’s shoulders. Samson was standing, practically leaning against the couch and River’s side, his little eyes drooping as he fidgeted to stay awake. On the other end of the couch sat Isaiah, leaning against his father. “Do you know what would be really good?” He asked quietly into their silent moment. The Doctor shifted, turning to address the child who was asking for the attention. “Mum and the TARDIS and adventure for her birthday.” The young boy, the teenager, explained to his father a shimmer of light, of hope flashing in the depths of his green eyes. The Doctor responded in the same manner.

“What are you two whispering about?” River asked as she shifted up and off the couch, Samson held against her hip as his head finally lulled against her shoulder in sleep.

“Nothing.” Isaiah shook his head also getting up. The boy followed his mother around the couch before she paused and asked him what was up. Deciding that there was no time better than the present Isaiah tilted his head to the side and asked her to follow him out the back door.

Since they told Isaiah the truth about his father, honestly and detailed the workings of the TARDIS, enough for the thirteen-year-old to understand The Doctor had started leaving the machine in the backyard rather than around the corner. The four of them fell out in the dark of night, the light from inside the house spilling against the grass. It was The Doctor who moved ahead of Isaiah and his mother, approaching the TARDIS before the both of them did.

The woman stopped, eldest child holding onto her fingertips as the youngest continued sleeping in her arms. She knew what the boys were up to, she knew exactly and she didn’t want to go along with it. It was late, she was tired, it was her birthday … but she was The Child of the TARDIS. Who was she to turn the machine down.  It had been close to nine years since she last stepped inside and the urge to do so was strong.

“C’mon River, it’ll just be the stars. Come see _our_ stars. Please?” He was standing in the open doorway to the great machine, impossible smile on his face as The Doctor held his hand out invitingly towards his wife. It was almost as though the energy moved through him, slipping out the door and dancing across the length of his outstretched arm before the time energy leaped from his finger tips and glided into her skin. River shivered as the energy collided inside her an old feeling reawaken in the shortest of moments. Samson shifted in her arms, disturbed in his sleep by the energy reheating her skin, almost making her glow.

Isaiah had moved from standing in front of his mother to hiding behind her as he felt the time energy, saw it and smelt it as it mingled in the cool night air, teasingly tugging at his insides and pulling on his hair. This is what his mother had been hiding him from. Not the machine itself but the energy, the thrill, the awakening he would feel and the urge to be out there, amongst it, dancing across the stars forever encased in the glowing gold energy that warmed his heart and echoed a second beating.

He had heard stories through his father, his mother and on occasion Clara. The child never thought he would actually come face to face with the infamous police box his father publically called ‘ _The TARDIS_ ’ or fondly ‘ _The Old Girl_ ’. He had seen the box before, the thing taking up residence in his backyard when his father came to visit but on this night underneath the moonlight and soft yellow hue coming from the warm house, it was the bluest blue Isaiah Song had ever seen and it was drawn to it like something he could never believe. This was a child meeting a faerie tale character come to life, the pull, the excitement, the disbelief. It was all happening to the boy, hiding behind his mother’s skirt.

“C’mon.” The Doctor called, his eyes on his wife as he begged her with and without the words. He watched as a tremor moved through her both temptation and fear as she stood there in the garden watching as he pulled down the walls she had so carefully built around herself. The sleeping child, smacking his lips in his dream grounded her, kept the woman standing barefoot in the grass as her long skirt flirted with the foliage. She could barely feel Isaiah’s hands gripping onto her skirt as she listened to the soft creak of wind flowing past his oxygen tank and the trees talking as though they were witnessing the happening of fate. “

She misses you.” He pleaded softly, almost childlike. The Doctor stepped away from his TARDIS and towards his wife, hand still out stretched but now close enough to touch her. He tugged on her hand giddily as it hung limply at her side but the woman stood her ground and simply shook her head in return.

The Doctor watched her, his green eyes melting into hers in the soft dark as he watched the tug undo her constraints and the chain fell away, making the woman powerless to resist. He tugged on her hand once more and this time the woman moved freely allowing him to pull her and their boys towards the awaiting machine.

The doors swung open and as soon as she took a step inside it was almost as though she had forgotten how to breathe. “Hello, Old Girl.” River whispered whimsically as the feeling of coming home overwhelmed her.

“Can I?” Isaiah asked, hovering in front of the door. The Doctor turned to his wife, this was her call. This was one thing she had hidden him from.

River turned her eyes away from the glistening sliver and humming machine and laid them on her husband. “I want him to see it all, don’t get me wrong but I’m scared he’ll get caught up in it. That he won’t want to leave and after all this time everything I’ve done will feel like a waste of effort.”

Turning back to his son The Doctor nodded. The effort she put in to raising their son, into protecting him from this world. It would never go to waste and deep down they had both known it. They watched with happy smiles as Isaiah stepped into the TARDIS for the first time, his oxygen tank trailing behind him as he held his breath and spun around.

“It’s bigger on the inside.” He whispered, astounded. The Doctor grinned. It felt as though time had stopped  while River and The Doctor watched their son explore the machine that instantly recognized his blood. Minutes passed, hours maybe as Isaiah moved, his hands skirting across the console like he was trying to memorise every square inch of it and figure out what it could all do. “You said the stars.” Isaiah spoke, breaking the silence and hurtling them through time to catch up from their dazed admiration.

The Doctor nodded, jumping towards the console as he pressed buttons and pulled levers. Isaiah watched closely as his father moved, bright smile on his face as he followed the pattern he had been performing for longer than most young children could count. He hovered near the console making sure to stay out of his father’s way but intrigued enough to step closer every few seconds. The Doctor stopped to watch his son, so in awe he hadn’t noticed the excitement of his father’s fluid movements stop.

“Isa.” He whispered as he moved towards his son. “Isa, go open the door.” The boy snapped out of his stupor his eyes watching the movement of his father’s eager face. Wonder sparked in his eyes as he turned slowly towards the door. His mother was behind him, Samson now awake in her arms as the teenaged boy pulled open the doors and stepped right into his wildest imagination.  

A planet did not lay beyond the doors instead the dark depths of the universe exposed itself to Isaiah Song, the stars shining brighter than ever while planet Earth loomed bellow. He stared at the wonder in front of him, amazed before turning wide eyes to his father in disbelief.

“Dad?” He started.

“Son.” Amused he smiled back.

Flabbergasted Isaiah turned back to the literal open space in front of him. He stared bewildered as his mother stood silently by his side.

“Is it as good as you thought?” The Doctor asked, joining his family by the open door.

Isaiah refused to pull his eyes away from the sight before him as he whispered his answer. “Better.” He beamed. Nothing could describe the way they stood there, The Time Lord, the man who roamed the galaxies like a lone nomad was experiencing it all again, watching the universe twirl and expand through the eyes of his son.  They all stood, aware of the drumming pulse of the universe gliding in through the doors and smashing into their skin. Samson sat on his mother’s hip, nonplussed at the happenings, more perturbed that his sleep was disrupted than anything else, The Doctor wasn’t surprised at this response, he knew the boy didn’t feel it like the rest of them did. Samson didn’t have the same make-up in his blood, there was no magnetic pull towards the vast universe that lay before him. Instead boredom and the toddler’s incessant need for sleep. The child shifted in his mother’s arms, fist in his mouth, drool on her shoulder while his hair stuck to his head, The Doctor couldn’t help but laugh at the child’s disregard. He understood, he really did, he also knew that one day Samson would admire the stars, that they would send him hurtling into adventures but for now, it was all a terrible, inconvenient bore and his mother wasn’t as great as his stable, unmoving bed.

Stepping back from the door, The Doctor silently took the struggling boy from his mother’s grip and settled him in his arms. Samson grunted both in annoyance and appreciation for the shift in bodies. Allowing for his wife to reconnect with the stars she had so long ago given up, with the child she had forsaken them for.

He wandered the halls of the TARDIS, the toddler sleeping limp and heavy in his arms. He hummed as the machine did too lulling the boy and leading the man to a small room she’d hidden away. The lights were off as The Doctor entered a small nursery his feet stepping cautiously in the room he had never before seen. Happily he put the boy down on a small bed at his feet an infant’s crib. Samson hadn’t slept in anything that held protective walls since he’d turned three months beforehand, the boy sighed heavily, his little face thankful in his relaxed sleep when his back collided with the mattress.   

River and Isaiah were by the door when he returned to the console room, his son had rid his face of the life sustaining device that made sure enough air was filling his malfunctioning lungs. He was sitting on the floor, his legs drifting out into space, his shoulders relaced with the cool, calm calamity of the day. The Doctor realised, as he watched his sick son take in his wildest, forbidden dream that there was no going back, not to Earth, not to live. Isaiah would not be holed up on that planet anymore, his father could feel the cogs turning in the adolescents mind as he stared out at the stars. River would be devastated, The Doctor imagined, but he also hoped some part of her would be relieved. She was never one to be held back and yet she caged herself on that planet, in that time and just like her son she would not go back so easily.

But he didn’t want them in that self-chosen cage, he would not force them back, instead, although his son’s decision remained in the mind of the thirteen-year-old himself The Doctor could still suggest one place, that would most definitely help the boy no matter his decision.

Sneaking up behind his wife, The Doctor reached tenderly for her hand. River sighed heavily as she allowed him to pull her away from the view, quietly he whispered a time and place and watched as her face clouded with confusion and then the faintest hint of fury.

“We’re not going back to Leadworth, not to live.” The Doctor told her as the woman quickly shook her head, disagreeing with the words he had whispered. “He won’t River, he won’t go back to living there.” Tossing a look over her shoulder the woman check on her son, still sitting in the door way, the universe splayed at his feet. She was denying what she saw, denying her son of what he felt but she knew her husband was right and he would have to win this round. “We still don’t know what he wants to do, but River, they have the Sisters there whatever his choice, it would be beneficial River.”

“Wouldn’t home be beneficial, he’s not getting any better Sweetie. He need to be comfortable, he needs to be at home.”

The Doctor shook his head. “We said this was his choice. We need to let him choose.” Admitting defeat River didn’t look at her husband as she nodded her head and huffed a small ‘fine’.

“Isa,” She called out to her son, voice soft as to not startle the boy who was teetering on the edge of reality. The boy turned, his eyes inspecting his mother, surely she wouldn’t interrupt him, not when he was so enthralled. “Dad has an idea and we need you to decide.”

“Why can’t grownups make their own decisions? I’m just a kid.” Isaiah muttered the last part so his mother couldn’t hear. He watched them, both of his parents silently for a moment, waiting for them to continue. “Yes?” He asked, encouraging them they had wanted to talk after all.

“There’s a hospital.” The Doctor began, “The best hospital in the whole universe, I think we need to go there.” He offered, unsure of what else to say. The Doctor knew his son would understand what he was getting at but he was still at a loss for words.

Isaiah shrugged simply as his eyes tracing over the console room, brow crinkled as he searched for something silently. Turning his attention back to his parents Isaiah shrugged. “I guess.” His parents were started at the boy’s almost uncertain tone, everyone waited for someone else to make the next move. “Where’s Sammy?” Isaiah asked, eyes moving around the room in search for his little brother.

“Sleeping.” The Doctor answered simply before he explained the room he had found. “Are you sure about this Isaiah?”

The boy nodded and then shrugged again. “I guess.” The same answer had River vibrating with disapproval, The Doctor waited for her to call the whole idea quits but she didn’t. “What about my friends and Clara? Will I be able to see them again?”

“You’ll see Clara again, your friends will have to wait until after you’re better.” Isaiah’s face fell a little bit, he had struggled, as his father had known, in making friends and once he had some the boy was reluctant to just up and leave them.

“What if I don’t want to get better?” Head lowered Isaiah asked quietly. River stiffened in front of him but The Doctor didn’t flinch.

“The Sisters of Plenitude can help with everything, Isaiah. You’ll be fine.” The Doctor ignored River’s disgruntled murmur like he had ignored the exact words his son had spoken. The Sisters of Plenitude were not exactly remembered for the best of things. Human cloning for the purpose of medical correction still wasn’t highly regarded, even for the 51st century.  

Isaiah shook his head. “I know I could get better, but what if I don’t want to?” He asked again, a little louder and determined this time for his father to hear him. The Doctor opened his mouth, prepared to argue back but his son had him beat. They put the choice into his hands regardless of what decision the thirteen-year-old made.

“How about we go to New Earth anyway?” River prompted, her own battle playing out in her head. She did not keep her son alive for thirteen-years to let him think he could just simply die. “Just for a little while, Sweetie, it’s probably better that we do. It can be an adventure, New Earth is full of it’s own nooks and crannies. And well, it is actually a whole new world.” The boy smiled brightly at his mother, forcing it for her sake. But the child, the teenager honestly believed that neither adult knew what it was that he had admitted too.   

With the same forced smile, Isaiah nodded. He would do anything to make sure his parents felt as though they were in charge, but he didn’t want to live through this. We wanted to end with the illness, his failing lungs were his. They did not need to be fixed. The boy himself was certain of that fact. 


	15. The New Earth

Thursday Afternoons

The Eighth Year, Tenth Week – The New Earth

He watched as his mother held her breath, bit her tongue and swallowed her words. River Song hated New Earth. She tried not to let the children see it, instead forced herself to move on with life like Isaiah forced a smile. But, she hated it and her eldest son knew it.

The Sisters of Plenitude certainly had cures in large numbers. It fascinated Isaiah but he was not tempted enough to try them. He lingered in the streets intrigued by the mood drugs sold in the undercity but never would his mother allow him to stray close enough into purchasing one of the menacing little things. Instead, River gripped his hand tight whenever they were out. She refused Samson the chance to walk until his feet could be placed on the carpet of their new 51st century home.

At first no one had acknowledged Isaiah’s words, his choice, both adults to terrified to admit what they heard him say. Isaiah stuck to it, convinced that his parents, especially his mother thought that perhaps if they ignored him he would change his mind. But the boy got sicker and instead of taking the help offered by this miraculous century he dwindled away. Due to this The Doctor needed to travel back to Earth every few months with the boy to replace his oxygen tanks, the new century didn’t care for debilitating illnesses of a severe case. They cured them before people got too sick.   

The colour drained from his face as it always did when he was sick and once again the boy struggled with his movements. He needed a few weeks in hospital the last time his lungs became breathless. Isaiah was irritable, he was tired and he was sick of his parents watching him with worry. They all knew how the story was going to end but refused to let it happen when an alternative ending was at the door. Isaiah had chosen his own ending, they _had_ put the power in his hand. His parents just wouldn’t believe it.   

The wind breezed through the window like a teenagers petulant sigh. It was a quiet day, that one, one without The Doctor which these days had been rare. But the man needed his space, Isaiah had returned from the hospital that morning and the Time Lord didn’t know how to cope. The weather was cold, the sun hiding behind the rain clouds as three members of the Song family optioned to stay indoors. Isaiah had stretched himself out on the floor, large book in front of him while his mother devoured a novel and Samson ran about entertaining himself with miscellaneous toys that scattered the living room floor. When a break came to the boy, as it usually did, he climbed up onto the couch behind Isaiah leaving himself to sit happily with his head in River’s lap as she played with his feathery hair.

No one spoke as the rain fell against the window, no one bothering to get up and close the open space that was letting the cold air in. They were happy to feel the shiver. Happy for the reminder that they were still alive.

The world was silent around them, Isaiah’s heavy breathing and Samson’s constant shifting were the only human noises along with the turning pages of River’s book. The serenity was ruined when a loud thump caused River to jump from her seat. Samson had moved from her and thrown his weight into Isaiah’s unsuspecting lap. “Samson!” River shrieked as the three-year-old boy tried to tackle the sick Isaiah to the ground. Isaiah fell easily, his hand up to stop his mother who was already leaning over him, trying to wrestle the boy from the teen.

“No, it’s okay.” Isaiah stopped her, hesitating in his play to move toys from his path. He laughed as the boy in turn shrieked once fingers connected with little ribs and proceeded to tickle the boy. River took a step back, startled that her son wasn’t porcelain, that he could make his own decisions regardless of how he felt. It was there that the penny dropped for River Song. Her son wanted to die. He wanted to let this kill him.

“Are you sure?” Looking up Isaiah knew she was not asking about the toddler on his lap but the decision that held a heavy grasp on his mind. Silently the child nodded as he watched the air escape his mother’s lungs and the pain rush across her face. She was trying to hide it, the boy noted, between wrestling with the almost slippery three-year-old. She was trying to accept the decision he had made but she was faltering.

“I’ll be okay, mum.” He whispered back to her while his fingers slid across Samson’s ribs causing the boy to shriek with laughter. “I promise.” River nodded softly, silently accepting before she turned and left the room, her skin sickly pale and her face drawn in such worry Isaiah thought the look would never disappear.

She spoke less and less that day, her voice was soft, her face compelled in a deep struggle. It was almost as though she was ignoring him but Isaiah could tell that she didn’t want to. When she didn’t speak she clung, holding onto his arm or Samson refusing to let go, unable to let go for some moments before her mind finally caught up with the command. He wasn’t scared, he didn’t push her. The boy understood that she was trying to cope, he just wished she would remain his happy-go-lucky mother who wouldn’t stop fighting for nothing while it all happened. She was giving up the fight and while a disease was killing him she was killing herself.

The situation didn’t change when his father came home, the heavy wheezing of the TARDIS filing the sticky air of the tension filled house. It did not bring relief this time, there was no hope, Isaiah felt only dread.

The Doctor was his usual exuberant self when he stepped through the door but when the tension fell over him his face fell with it. He only stopped to press a caring kiss to the top of both boys’ head’s before he disappeared deeper into the house in search of his distraught wife. 

“It’ll be okay, Sammy.” Isaiah whispered into the quiet room. Samson lay behind him, sprawled out on the couch while Isaiah leant against it. The little boy’s head touching the back of his shoulder slightly while the weight of the house kept them both grounded, miserably. “They don’t know what it’s like to climb the stairs and not be able to breathe half way up or what it’s like needing to be in a hospital that isn’t helping every few weeks. They gave me the choice, Sammy, I just wish they’d understand instead of making me feel trapped into changing my mind.” A hefty sigh came from both boys while they sat there in the gloom waiting to hear the shouting voices from the other end of the hall. Nothing came. No words were spoken, not loud enough for the boys to hear themselves just dead silence. Isaiah supposed that that was how the world was going to be. Silent in the face of death. Silent in death. He had a lot to look forward to, considering he still wasn’t used to it. He liked it better when his parents fought, shouting words and angry voices, at least then he knew how they felt. They were always like that, it was just who they were. His father gallivanted off while his mother was left behind and after thirteen years she was finally having enough for it. But now, instead of being full of life she was quiet, her spirit seeping out in her too soon mourning. He wanted to scream at them, to be the one to shout but his lungs wouldn’t hold it. So instead he let them go, let the most alive people he’d ever known, die before he did.

It was a sick kind of world.

“You have to remind them to smile when I’m gone.” Isaiah whispered again, his hand reaching back for Samson’s. This time he was fairly sure the boy was fast asleep behind him. The sun had set and everyone else was surely heading off to bed, he didn’t think Samson would last very much longer before he too was off in a dream world. He was already half way there. “I think they’ll forget how to do that very quickly, but you’ll be there to change that Sammy.” Isaiah kept talking, he needed to say it, even if his brother wasn’t listening. He would hear it. One day. For his own sanity, Isaiah needed to know that someone was going to look after his parents after he was gone, make sure they still had their adventures instead of destroying themselves in grief.

He fell back into silence by the time The Doctor showed his face at the front of the house. He smiled softly at Isaiah, keeping up appearances in away, before scooping up the indeed asleep Samson and taking him off to bed.  

Isaiah followed soon after, his movements slow as he encouraged his body and oxygen tank to climb the stairs. He was only just getting a grip on his breathing again when he heard his mother whimper. Stopping the boy edged towards her door, the light wasn’t on but it wasn’t dark enough outside to set the room into complete darkness. The boy watched, unable to move as he listened to the sound of his mother’s quiet sobs. She was the strong one, she was the one who picked him up, who picked them all up when the world began to fall apart. She couldn’t be the one crying. She couldn’t be broken. River Song was a superhero in her son’s eyes; she couldn’t crumble now, she wasn’t allowed. A heavy weight set over his shoulders as Isaiah continued to listen, he didn’t know where his father was in the house but he certainly wasn’t comforting the distraught woman. It was there in the dark hallway, the soft bristle of oxygen tickling at his nose that Isaiah realised this was his fault, his mother was falling apart because of a decision he had made. Albeit she put the decision in his hands he knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to make such a lethal choice. 

Hands sliding over the back of his ears Isaiah slipped the nasal cannula over his head before dropping it deftly to the floor. Slowly he took a step towards his mother’s room and silently pushed the door open. Creeping in, Isaiah slipped onto the bed and curled into his mother’s side. The woman didn’t flinch, didn’t move outside of the shuddering sobs she was trying to keep at bay. Lying next to her Isaiah held his breath while he listened to the emotion pour from her chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, mum.” He exhaled on a choked sob. Isaiah repeated his words over and over but his mother wasn’t responsive. “I’m sorry.” He cried for a fifth time. “I wish I was never born.” As the words left his still mouth a hand came down on his shoulder, flinching Isaiah found himself not beside his mother in her room but outside the door where he’d been standing all along, cannula still in place, his fingers daring to take the tube off.  

“Are you okay?” It was The Doctor’s hand on his shoulder, pulling the child from the dream world that had him as openly distraught as his mother. Wiping his hand across his face Isaiah turned to the Time Lord and feigned his emotions as he nodded and whispered a soft ‘fine’ before pushing past his father, the oxygen tank squeaking on its wheels as he moved.     

He was as silent as his mother when the sun rose the next morning. He didn’t get out bed, he didn’t speak, he didn’t even acknowledge Samson who came, bursting, into his room. The energy had drained from his mind, the light gone in his eyes. It wasn’t because he was sick anymore, not really. It was because he was sick that his mother was upset and having hurt her, Isaiah was hurting himself. He couldn’t bear to change his mind. He couldn’t tell her that he wanted to live. It hurt so much. Not being sick but living.  He wasn’t made for that, he couldn’t continue with it. There was so much pain in the world, not what he caused but what people caused upon themselves. Isaiah couldn’t do it, he didn’t want to live among it anymore. He did his time, he watched the world turn, the sun rise and fall; he smelt the roses and he fell in love in more ways the one, he was done now. He just wanted to leave.

His father once told him about a planet called Gallifrey, the home of the Time Lords, a place long ago destroyed. He wanted to meet the people there, he wanted to watch their sun rise and fall, he wanted to fall in love with its mystery. He couldn’t be alive to do that but it was okay, he didn’t really mind.

And if Isaiah Song couldn’t reach Gallifrey he always had Amy and Rory Pond to keep him company. His mother should be happy with that fact, he just hoped she would be happy that he was happy when the time finally came. 

 

 


End file.
